


DisTRUST

by Cutthroat In Carolina (Illmerica), Illmerica



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beta Executions, Canon Until Chapter 5, Character Death, Gen, Guest Appearances By the Second Cast, Hiatus, Multiple Pov, Original Executions, Original Murders, but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 00:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 68,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4201521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illmerica/pseuds/Cutthroat%20In%20Carolina, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illmerica/pseuds/Illmerica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of them were sure how she’d done it—because some had been corpses for weeks, others nothing more than pathetic bits and pieces left over—but somehow, someway, Junko Enoshima had sewn them all back together like little dolls, so she could play with them all over again. </p><p>And from their second chance at life, the second official School Life of Mutual Killings begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue to Desbear For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just wanted to see everyone one more time. Alive. Breathing.  
> He just wanted to see everyone again. And this time he would — he would take...care...of...them...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for a short explanation, this story operatives on the idea that anything not directly stated before Chapter 5 technically is not 'confirmed'. We'll be keeping some things, such as Mukuro's place as Junko, but others like Kirigiri's backstory are not assured. Everything that happens before that still happened, like, for example, Chihiro was still murdered by Mondo. 
> 
> The AU begins at Naegi's execution, and continues with made up murders that will be further explained later. This prologue is essentially the end of what will be called Round 1 from here on out. The rest of the story will focus more in depth on the other later Rounds, so rest assured this isn't the story's format.  
> —Karisa
> 
>  
> 
> Hello and welcome to our story! This massive project - or at least, by the time we're done it'll be fairly long and have taken up more hours of our lives than is probably healthy - is a collaboration between myself, Sierra, and my younger sister, Karisa, that'll be posted here on her account. We'll do our best to post as regularly as possible now that we've started and stay one chapter ahead the entire time, but we can't exactly promise anything. Either way, for now please enjoy the prologue!  
> ~ Sierra

**After School Lesson**

_Bang. Thud_.  _Bang._

He was innocent.

 _Bang. Thud._ _Bang._

That body wasn’t killed by his hands. That body had already been dead.

_Bang. Thud. Bang. Thud. Bang._

This had all been a set up; for once Monokuma had been the one to kill. He’d lied. This was a _trick_.

_Bang. Thud. Bang. Thud. Bang. Thud. Bang._

He was _innocent_ and she _knew it._

“Could this take any longer?”

Her eyes—purple, just like her Father’s, but definitely not starting to blur with tears; definitely not guilty tears because she hadn’t wanted for this to have to happen, and she was completely and utterly innocent and so was _he—_ flashed to her right. The blond was sneering at the scene before them, but she saw his crossed arms tighten with every inch closer their guilty— _no he’s condemned, he's not guilty, there’s a difference—_ classmate moved towards his looming punishment.

Looking away had been a terrible mistake, she’d then realized, because within those short seconds the _Bang Thud_   _Bang_ mixed with a loud wet squelch and the three others screamed at the sight that she'd been too busy (too _guilty_ ) to watch. They’d all clumsily scrambled away from the window they’d been looking out of to observe, one crashing to her knees and clutching her head and pulling on her braids as she fought not to pass out.

When she had finally forced herself to look, Monokuma had climbed off his table and started to run his paw through the bright pink mess that covered the floor.

 

 

 

   

She was found in the morning collapsed in the middle of the library floor _—_ a long, long tongue lolling out of her still smiling mouth and red eyes bright with genuine surprise behind her glasses, surrounded by a crime scene.

Three varying cuts—one stretching across her collarbone, the deepest slicing through the entirety of her right palm, and a final, smaller nick on her cheek—were still dripping to the grunge covered carpet when they’d arrived, fading red marks like hands around her throat, her temple completely smashed in. Almost like a set of darts, a single pair of the warped scissors they had all become far too familiar with was sticking out from the side of a nearby bookcase.

Two minutes into the investigation a blood stained and corner dented copy of _So Lingers the Ocean_ was found hidden under a stack of books regarding finance and business models.

 

 

 

 

**Human★Disqualification**

His execution lasted a total of three and a half days.

Monochrome dolls dressed in neon school uniforms had giggled and taunted him as he’d climbed out from the grime of the ice encrusted dumpster into the thick smoke of hellish fire that filled the narrow alleyway. They’d pelted him with sticks and stones and garbage, leaving lashes along his back as he tried to crawl away.

Then, finally, when he could take no more, he’d drug himself back to the dumpster and thrown his beaten body over the lip. He’d tumbled down to the dumpster’s bottom with a sharp cry, clutching the lid so it slammed down above him, and desperately wished that this would end.

They’d watched him pace around the small space for hours at a time—shoulders hunched and head down to accommodate the low ceiling, the shivers down his long frame never ending—and scratch at his cold itchy flesh for days and days and days. They listened to his grumbling stomach and his dry cough and his nonsensical muttering for days and days and days, until they’d thought they were losing all grasp of reality too.

Nonetheless, none of them felt the inevitable cessation coming when, days and days and days later, it happened.

On the thirteenth hour of the third day he’d _broken down_ , beating at his empty stomach and choking on his dry throat and clawing at his freezing skin. He’d screamed and cried and _collapsed_ on himself.

On the fourteenth hour of the third day he’d _shut down_ , grabbing hold of the single sharp stone that had fallen in with him and stabbing it into the soft unworn flesh of his throat.

No one was sure who was most relieved for it to be over.

 

 

 

 

It had happened in a blur of loud sobs and movement.

She had been out of her seat before a single thought of doubt could cross her mind, a fork and knife clutched desperately in her hands. She’d chased him round and round, and he’d ran, ran, ran, _ran_ for his life. There was no thought in the motions her arms made, just hope that she would snag on something—that she could make something _hurt_ as much as she was hurting—and it was only when something— _no_ no, not something, never something, it was always some _one_ —else was in front of her that her fork _did_ snag.

Purple eyes had stared back at her, crinkled in the corners.

She’d screamed again. The fork in the leather and flesh of the other girl’s arm didn’t react when she pulled and tugged and begged. Then she swung her other hand, for no reason more than to _swing_ again, to _feel it_ , and the knife in her fist cut through the pale flesh of a neck that exploded into a pale neck of pink. It splattered and gurgled onto her cheek as the person in her arms went limp.

Together, they’d collapsed to the floor, one still sobbing and the other dead.

 

 

 

 

**Water Illusion Show**

The water had been cold and crystal clear, the glass sparkling with clarity.

This was a Magician’s Show, the stage and the curtain and the top hat wearing Monokuma suggested. This was a Nightmare, the blue faced girl and the panicked flailing arms and the sharks admitted.

Their sleek bodies had circled her ominously as she struggled with the cuff and chains damning her to the bottom of the tank. Small bubbles of precious air spilled from her nose and tight pressed lips, and her eyes followed them desperately.

Her entire form had jerked when the first pair of teeth closed down—taking in her left leg from thigh to shin and then _taking_ her leg entirely—and she seemed to stop, to let herself sink back down to the tank’s silvery bottom. The predators swarmed her the moment her chain went slack.

Within the span of a few breaths from her one-man audience, she was nothing more than murky pink water and scattered chunks of pathetic flesh.

 

 

 

 

It was all over.

He felt like a dead man.

With a drawn and slow rumble, the doors of the elevator exposed their cargo to the familiar courtroom with a dismissive apathy at his emotional state; it was utterly uncaring of his uncontrollable shaking, or of the wet lines worn into his face from a constant water flow, or of the distant lost look that clouded his eyes. In truth, the machine offered the exact amount of concern and empathy that was to be expected from the heartless building it resided in.

The elevator’s cargo was called Yasuhiro Hagakure, and he was a dead man.

He stumbled through the open doors like a drunk. Somewhere inside of him the heavy air that had always cramped the trial room swelled in his gut—the confined but wild air of a prison—while somewhere outside of him the loneliness pressed down against his skin. The disconnect left him off balance, as if he could no longer breathe.

Asahina hadn’t been able to breathe either.

Hagakure bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying vainly to not break down again in this wretched school. _Not again_. He couldn’t give up, give _in_ to  _this_ , again or he would never be able to stop. Maybe it would kill him, this loneliness. There was nothing really left for him after all. He was alone in this school and all his classmates were dead and all his friends were dead and he was _alone_. All that was left of the people he’d suffered with were corpses. What was there for him now — a life of solitude, aside from the wicked bear that had taunted them from the beginning, followed by inevitable death?

“Well, at long last, here we are! Are you excited?”

He shrieked.

His eyes snapped open to see a pair of barred white teeth smiling at him, half hidden behind a crudely sewn Monokuma plush.

“Or _surprised_ , surprised definitely works too.” She conceded with a nonchalant shrug. Junko Enoshima, his incredibly _alive_ classmate draped across Monokuma’s throne, nodded her head in what appeared to by sympathy. “I don’t blame you Hagaichi, I might be a teeny bit hysterical too if all of my friends had died. It’s probably _pretty_ traumatizing.”

Hagakure fell back against the elevator with another yelp, hands grasping at the solid metal doors for purchase like he were planning to tear the closed doors open with nothing more then the strength in his bare hands; something that he quite obviously _couldn't_  do, no matter how much the situation had suddenly called for. The little color that had remained on his face drained away, leaving a pathetic mask of fearful white.

Enoshima’s smile fell and her lips puckered, unpleased, but the silly quirk of her eyebrow ruined the expression. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Gh-G-G-Gh-Gho—” He sputtered. His fingers clawed the surface more desperately while his eyes continued to grow in size. “G-G-G-Gho-G—”

“If you wanna say something Hagaichi, then just spit it out already.”

Hagakure threw his head back in horror and cried to the ceiling, “Gho- _Ghost_! Help! It’s the ghost of Enoshima-chi! _Get me outta here_!”

Hagakure spun around in a panicked flurry and began to pull at the crease where the doors met, shoving his fingers between as best he could and pulling at them with all his strength. Neither budged and, frantically, Hagakure tried to slam his shoulder against door, as if he could bust them down with pure and wild force alone. The force of the attack knocked him away with a hollow metallic clang and he clutched at his throbbing shoulder and howled in pain, hopping from foot to foot.

Enoshima sighed into her perfectly manicured hand with an almost fond tone. “And _this_ is exactly why nobody expected you win. There were, what, two bets on you? Three?” She gave an amused shake of her head. “ _I_ don’t even know how you won, and I’ve known you way longer than any kind of _fan_ could hope to. Personally, I had my money on Kirigiri-san or Celes-san.”

“Don’t mo-move Enoshima-chi, I know exac-exactly what to do!” Hagakure forced air in and out, trying to calm himself, and started fumbling through his pockets. “Now I-I know you might no-not want to but Imma have to help you cro-cross over. First, uh, we need to cleanse to room, too many dark energies in here, r-right? Then we can just…uh…u- _urge_ you over! It really isn’t that bad, trust me, so just st-stay there!”

Enoshima stared at him. “ _What_ are you doing?” Her smile disappeared, replaced by what might have been a scowl or might have just been nothing at all. “Knock it off.”

“L-Look, I even have some…some smudge sticks! Yeah! We just go-gotta light ‘em and we’ll be set! Do you happen to-to have a lighter or something? Matches? I d-don’t have any but – oh....yeah, yo-you’re a ghost, you wouldn’t have any stuff on you, would you—”

In a single and fluid motion, Enoshima slammed her fist into the throne’s armrest, stood from the seat, and chucked the plush from her lap to the other side room. The sudden action was too fast for Hagakure to react or move. He flinched when the stuffed animal bounced off his stomach and cowered back against the door.

“I’m sorry! Ple- _Please_ don’t possess me! It leaves a wicked smell and this is my favorite jacket! I-I’m sorry!”

“Listen up you,” Enoshima jabbed a single finger towards him. “You are going to shut the fuck up before I _strangle_ _you_ with your own _intestines_ , ’kay bastard? There’s no time for your occult bullshit, we have too many things to do and we’re already behind as it is. I’m a busy woman! There’s only so _much_ I’m willing to deal with today.”

Hagakure gave a silent, tentative nod.

Enoshima’s face became the picture of absolute innocence, completed with her large sparkling eyes. She curled her hands into fists and held them up, pressed together over her heart. “Hagaichi! You’re being so lame!” She complained with a childish pout. “Don’t you wanna know about how I’m alive, or what you get for being the winner, or where we’re gonna go from here? This is supposed to be the cool climax and you’re totally ruining it!”

Hagakure gaped at her, unable to speak. Beaming again, Enoshima kicked her legs in an exaggerated march and stomped from the throne’s platform to behind the empty, sixteenth lectern. She patted the lectern to her left, _Hagakure’s_ , and turned expectantly towards him, humming lightly and rocking back and forth on her heels.

“So, what do you want to cover first Hagaichi? How I’m alive? What Monokuma really is? Why you and all of your classmates were trapped here in the first place?”

Still fairly speechless at the sudden turn of events, Hagakure spent a long moment alternating between staring and blinking at her. Once he’d finally grasped that it was unlikely the floor would fall out from under his feet or that he would spontaneously catch fire, he blurted the first question to pop into his head. “Why are you calling me Hagaichi?”

Enoshima peered at him over the wires of her glasses. “Really? That’s your question?” Enoshima sighed, tapping her clipboard impatiently. “I would ignore your useless contribution to this confrontation entirely, but thus far I have determined that your tiny brain can only focus upon one train of thought at a time. If I were to ignore your inquiry then further progress in our conversation would become an absolutely hopeless endeavor.”

Hagakure sputtered. “Tiny brain?”

“You see,” She continued. “The name ‘Hagaichi’ is a nickname of sorts that has been bestowed upon you by myself, Junko Enoshima, for becoming the singular survivor of the first round of the School Life of Mutual Killing. It appears that you have gained it solely because of some ridiculous ability of yours to appear pathetic enough to not warrant the effort of being murdered. 'Haga' comes from your surname, as I'm sure you've realized, while 'Ichi' defines as one, to signify that you are the first winner. Now,” The lens of her glasses shined. “May we continue?”

Hagakure offered no answer. Enoshima nodded to herself and checked something off on her clipboard.

“Let’s begin then. Firstly, I am the mastermind that you and your classmates have been so anxiously searching for. It is also important that you are aware that I am indeed the true Junko Enoshima and that I am indeed alive. The girl whom you saw impaled in the gym was my twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba, who was acting as me on my orders and whose body was displayed in the botanical garden in order to have Kirigiri-san blamed for the murder and executed.”

“You’re wrong!” Hagakure yelled, suddenly able to find his voice. He jumped at the sound of it, as if he hadn’t expected himself to speak up, but kept going. “She wasn’t executed for killing Ikusaba-chi, that was Naegi-chi!”

Enoshima wilted like a dying flower at that and began to tug at the mushroom hair clips in her hair. “I know, it all went horribly wrong.” She admitted, a heavy note of disappointment in her voice. “I wanted Kirigiri-san dead, but Naegi-kun just made all of you so _hopeful_ , so I ended up steering you towards him at the last moment. You guys had him executed for absolutely _nothing_. Isn’t that just depressing?”

Hagakure froze in horror as Enoshima went on.

“Really, all the other stuff is pretty sad too. You and the others are all here ‘cuz you’re my closest friends. My _only_ friends. I wanted to include everyone in our biggest, most exciting game so we could all share this experience together...as _friends_... You see, Hagaichi, we all know each other. The sixteen of us became great friends during our first year together at Hope’s Peak, and I-I couldn’t think of any better way to show everyone how much I cared!” Enoshima sniffled into her hand, eyes filled with tears. “I thought it was sweet of me...that you all would appreciate all the effort I put into making everyone become even closer...”

“That–” Hagakure choked. “That’s not how you show your affection for people!” He managed. Then he realized what she’d said. “What do mean we’re all friends? I didn’t know anyone here before we were trapped in this school!”

Enoshima barked out a laugh, eyes brightening with a familiar razor sharp grin. Even from as far away as the elevator doors—which he had still yet to dislocate himself from, surely they had to offer some protection—Hagakure could feel the whiplash from her constantly shifting personalities.

“A fuckin’ shame isn’t it? I stole your memories like they were some loser’s lunch money! It’s the perfect set-up to: fifteen friends who can’t even remember the last two years of their lives locked up and forced to slaughter each other. All the while they've got no idea that the person they just stuck a knife into used to be someone they’d laughed together in class with, or called in the middle of the night for all that mushy-gushy comfort shit, or even shared their deepest darkest secrets with, something that could absolutely _destroy_ them if anyone else knew _but them_. You can’t even imagine the views we’ve had since the start of this whole thing! The bids too! The bets! Goddamn, I might even start to get emotional over here! The most important people in your entire life are the ones that you just sat back and watched kill each other, and now the only ones left are _you_ and _me_! The bitch that started all this, right? _Ha_! Isn’t all of this just _awful_?”

“Shut up!” Hagakure’s voice cracked as he shouted. He was shaking, harder than before, and tears had begun to prick in his eyes. “Y-You’re—” Hagakure scrubbed at his face in distress. “You’ve got to–to be lying, it’s gotta be impossible to force amnesia like that! To just–To just take away my memories like that! You’ve be-been lying this entire time! None of this... I don’t think anything you’ve said is even possible!”

Enoshima’s grin—no,no,no,no, that wasn’t a _smile_ , _smiles_ were _happy_ and whatever _that_ was _it definitely wasn’t happy_ , it was **_evil—_** somehow managed to grow in size, and she began to stalk towards him, around the circle of lecterns and picture frames. All fourteen posts stared blankly outwards.

“You don’t remember the Studio Ghibli movie marathons Yamada-kun asked us to have with him, or Maizono-san’s concerts and the VIP seating she offered all of us, or when Fukawa-san wrote her first novel without even a goddamn romantic subplot and based each and every character on one of us.”

Black heels clicked and scraped against the tile floor, much too dainty of a sound for their owner.

“You don’t remember how Celes-san convinced everyone to play strip poker with her and almost lost to Naegi-kun, or when Ishimaru-kun tried to get everyone on his crazy finals studying routine and even managed to keep everything from going to _absolute shit_ while doing it, or Asahina-san and Oogami-san’s New Year’s Eve party that ended with the cops being called.”

Red nails caressed each post and sign as they passed, with the gentle touch of a Mother.

“You don’t remember dinner with Naegi-kun’s family and being baffled at how _normal_ they were, or Togami-kun inviting everyone to his mansion, only for us to all trash the _entire fuckin’ palace_ and get kicked out, or even the time when Big Sis Muku saved _your_ sorry ass from an Yakuza hit.”

Blue orbs gleamed at the memories impossible for the other to recover; mocking yet fond.

“And the worst part is,” Enoshima licked her lips. “You’ll never remember any of it again. Not if I can fuckin’ help it — which, lemme just tell you now, I sure a shit can. I love all you bastards way too much to let all this work I put into _your_ game go to waste.”

“Th-There’s...no way... You’re a _ghost_...” Hagakure whispered. “Just a ghost who ca-came back to haunt me.”

She was mere feet away from him now, and, in an a final thoughtless attempt at escape, Hagakure pulled at the elevator’s crease again from behind his back. Like before, neither door budged. He felt seconds away from collapsing to the floor. “Oh, so we’re back to this shit again?” Enoshima growled, her hands fists. Her face was still a grin, no matter how little her aggressive tone displayed it, and her fringe casted a shadow across the upper portion of her face. “ _Of course_ we are. Why am I even surprised with you?”

Hagakure started when her eyes snapped upwards and caught his, flattening himself against the metal behind him. Spirals of silver spun through her irises. Enoshima’s smile grew.

“Listen and listen good, ‘kay? I’m very, _very_ real, your memories are very, _very_ gone, and soon everything will make very, _very_ little sense. People don’t usually come back from the dead, after all. That’s why you fuckin’ call them _dead_.”

Hagakure gulped, audible and loud. Was he even breathing anymore? He wasn’t sure; his mind felt too cluttered, too paralyzed. Nothing was making any sense.

“Back from the d- _dead_? H-Huh?”

He couldn’t look away from her eyes, too mesmerized by the hypnotic pattern. He was like a helpless little rat, caught in a staring contest with a ravenous viper, bound to blink first. And the snake wasn’t going to wait very long for her snack before she struck. The rustle of stern fabric—a skirt, perhaps—went unnoticed.

Much to Hagakure’s surprise, though for the most part it was subconscious, as the rest of him was much more occupied in definite numbness and fear and confusion, Enoshima took a step backwards, away from him. She glanced down at her clipboard with a click of her tongue. “Of course, each participant must be dead before those already deceased can be brought back. It would only be fair. What I have dubbed the _Super Duper Secret Ultra Mega Anti-Death Experiment of Despair 3000_ , which has been created and managed by dear associates of mine, is finally ready for use. We can hardly afford any more setbacks than those you have already forced upon our schedule with your endless questions and other nonsense.” Enoshima frowned at him. “Wouldn’t you agree, Hagaichi?”

Hagakure opened his mouth. “I, uh." He swallowed. "Wait, just. Yes! I-I mean, _n_ o—”

The room exploded into rapid commotion as a gun went off, the clipboard and glasses clattering to the floor as if they'd been forgotten. Multiple long sprays of pink splattered onto the surrounding walls and elevator doors. Hagakure screamed.

Enoshima giggled. " _Bingo_!" She cheered with a childish grin. "Wowie, you got it right on the mark! I knew you would understand, or that you probably pretend to, at least." Her face turned to a cocky smirk, arms crossed and chest puffed out. "A total fuckin' idiot like you always knows how to pretend they've got a clue. It'd be impressive, if it was so goddamn sad, Hagaichi."

His legs twitched under him, just as pained and confused as the rest of him, then gave out completely, leaving Hagakure slumped against the elevator's doors. His hands couldn't quiet catch him properly, too preoccupied with clumsily pressing against the left side of his chest to dig at the bullet. He gasped, and gasped, and gasped, convulsing at random as blood began to sputter down his chin with each desperate attempt to suck in air and each disheartening response of a choked cough. It hurt,  _damn it hurt_. The burn the metallic flavor— _bloodbloodblood it'sbloodfromhis_ _body—_ washed over his tongue relentlessly, out from his mouth and down his cheeks, down his chin. He might just be sick.

"I haven't seen despair this up close and personal in a shitload of time." Enoshima remarked with narrowed eyes, almost causally. She sunk to her knees beside him and leaned over his body carefully, as if she didn't want to disturb him. There was a silver revolver cradled against her chest. "It's one of the goddamn prettiest things I've seen, you little _bitch_! Thanks!"

Hagakure was _dying_. Oh God, he was really, actually, _literally_   _dying_. The thought felt much less appealing with a bullet in his left lung.

With slow movements, Enoshima reached over and grabbed the Monokuma plush back up from it's place on the floor. She held it in front of her, hiding her face and rocking the stuffed animal back and forth. “Ouch, what a _Boo-Boo_! You’re probably in bunches of pain now, but it’s all in the name of fairness! Just _bear_ with me, ‘cuz, see, we can’t just have everyone but you experience the im _paws_ ible to resist excitement of dying! It’s em _bear_ assing, I know, but I’m all about equality! Not to mention the _panda_ monium that’s gonna break out when we get everyone up and running again! But it’ll be good _fur_ us! _Fur_ you! You’ve already got a _paws_ ome head-start of all the grizzly info I worked so hard to keep secret! I mean, c’mon you dumb bastard! Me? Big Sis Muku? Even the un _bear_ ably scary Commodus; that’s almost everything there is to know, backstory wise! You’ve gotta understand where I’m coming from! Every _bear_ y’s gotta be equal!”

Enoshima paused and dropped the stuffed animal, making a face as she did.

“Eh, okay, that one was kinda _Pooh_ , but they can’t all be winners!”

There wasn't enough air; his lungs were parched for oxygen and too filled with blood to be able to do anything about it. His eyes squeezed shut. He was too dizzy, too lightheaded, too pained.

Hagakure was aware that Enoshima had yet to stop talking, still jabbering on as she stroked his cheek and belted out giggles uncomfortably close to Monokuma’s—who, he guessed, she also was—but he could only just catch the words as his senses began to fade in and out. The odd, nasally tone of voice she’d taken on with the Monokuma plush wasn’t helping much.

“But don’t........ag...hi, we’re.......to have....much _fun_.....next time!” Enoshima declared behind the plush. Hagakure struggled to understand her, the world beginning to almost fade around him.  “I’ll..pare...solutely no expen.... It’ll be wild...fanc.....funner! Wait, is...at...en a word? ....who... _res_? Jus.......th...the.....ne....one..wi...r..k...!”

As desperately he tried to focus on her words—nonsensical as they were, _evil_ as they were—everything was melting around him. Dying. Like _him_. No matter how much Hagakure hated it, he only wanted to hear her voice continue to say terrible, terrible things. At least that would mean he was alive to hear them.

He was so tired — so _lonely_.

Why had he been the last one? The ‘survivor’ — why was it _him_? Someone like Kirigiri or Naegi or Togami could have made sense of Enoshima’s words, at the very least. Someone like Oogami or Celes would have stayed calm, at the very least. Even someone like _Syo_ wouldn’t have been too scared to do anything, to avenge people and make Enoshima feel their wrath and revenge. _Anyone_ else.

He just wanted to see everyone one more time. Alive. Breathing.

He just wanted to see everyone again. And this time he would - he would _take_... _care_...of...them...

The intercoms crackled to life. “ _A body has been discovered! After a brief period of investigation, a school trial will commence_.”

She laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll post what is the technical first chapter on either this upcoming Friday or Saturday, though it depends on how quick we finish the final edit on it.  
> —Karisa
> 
> ((POSTED ON : 6/30/2015))


	2. Part A : This is Zombieland and We're the Attractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shh, shh, there’s no reason to panic! Shhhhh. You’ve been dead for a while now, but Mama Junko fixed you all right up with a few stitches and a bunch of love! So now that our big happy family is back together, we can start our little game all over again! Ehehehehehe. Don’t panic, shh, we’re going to have so much despair together again. So much fun! Doesn’t it sound just amazing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have the first of our main five POVs, Sayaka Maizono, the first dead of Round 1.  
> —Karisa

**DAY ??? — ROUND ???**

 

 

 

 

The last time Sayaka Maizono closed her eyes, it was with painted fingers trailing to finish their last letter and a knife jutting between the holes that covered her stomach; it was with Leon Kuwata stumbling away bellowing screams of panic and blame.

The next time Sayaka Maizono opened her eyes, it was with tall towers of bookcases looming over her and the unbearable weight of fatigue pinning her numb body to the floor; it was with blood and energy and _life_ still flowing through her veins, instead of in puddles and sprays across the bathroom floor.

She didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand the cold, numb, sore sensation that held her body down. She didn’t understand the sight of the worn tomes alphabetically sorted in front of her, or the deafening silence that surrounded her and thrummed in her ears, or the robust sting of copper on her tongue, or the heavy musk of old pages in the air, or the coarse carpet woven between her tingling fingers.

Maizono was dead; she had died with a knife and shame in her gut, but hope in her brain. Hope her message would be seen. Hope her killer would be caught. Hope her actions could be forgiven no matter how little she deserved it.

Maizono had died with hope, but died nonetheless.

So if she was in fact deceased, where was she now? Whatever this was, she was positive it didn’t feel like _however_ death felt.

The room reminded her of the extravagant private library Ayaka Haneyama had built for herself, what with the shelves brushing the ceiling and the dim atmosphere that enveloped the room. The smell was strikingly different though, the ancient musk of books replacing the light floral fragrance Maizono had become accustomed to. Other than that, along with the different colored lamp shades on the tables around the room, the two rooms felt almost identical.

Still, this wasn’t Haneyama’s library and Maizono was at a loss for even the slightest explanation as to what it actually was.

Maizono had never hated books or reading enough for it to represent some kind of hell, nor had she loved them enough to make it a heavenly sort of place. Any kind of reincarnation was also out of the question, as, when she looked down, she found herself in the same school uniform she’d lived and died in. Her body hadn't changed, as far as she could tell. Maybe purgatory was the answer — a waiting room for heaven? She had plenty of sins to atone for, after all. Though that was assuming she even deserved so much after her horrid actions.

An ache went through her stomach at the thought.

After everything she had gone through with Naegi in their short time together—the _confessions_ , the _friendship_ , the _trust_ —she had betrayed him in her panic without even so much as a second thought. She’d latched onto the boy she’d wanted to befriend for years and then tossed him aside like garbage. Maizono wouldn’t blame the other if he hated her for what she did or, really, just hated her in general. She deserved nothing better.

And then there was Kuwata. Despite his overzealous and cocky attitude, he was still a human being. He was someone with hopes and dreams that deserved a chance to achieve them, just every other person on the planet. Kuwata had never warranted being her target, nor her killer, and despite it all, in the end, he’d been unlucky enough to become both.

Who even _knew_ what Monokuma had done to him, with all his talk of punishments; something terrible and painful, she guessed. It was probably something only fit for someone as terrible as herself.

As she looked back, Maizono could see how preposterous, half-cocked, idiotic, and plain out _stupid_ her entire plan had been. She had considered it a perfect plot for escape from Hope's Peak at the time, but all she could do now was wonder just how it had morphed itself into the glorified suicide mission it had become. It was embarrassing to think how she's let her panic swallow her so quickly. The others had been able to keep their head in the face of Monokuma's silly smoke and mirrors while Maizono had fallen for his trap like she was nothing more than a naïve child.

Her first instinct—her first _thought_ —was revenge against Monokuma. He and the Mastermind who controlled him deserved to pay for putting them all in this situation and manipulating them like this. Her second instinct—her first _want_ —was to plead for forgiveness. She wanted to fall to her knees, to cry, to beg, to bargain; she would do whatever it took until fourteen faces could look at her without disgust for what she had done.

Though honestly, Maizono doubted that she would ever have a chance to do either. She didn’t have the talent to pull off the former and she didn’t think she’d ever deserve the later. Never mind that she was _still dead_.

What use was there being an _idol_ anyway? To please people? To make them smile, and laugh, and have a good time?

 _Ha_.

Like she was even good at _that_. Those big, fake smiles and her stupid, peppy voice were the only things she could probably even do right. Maybe it would have been best if she just sat there for the rest of _whatever_ she was in and rotted away with these old books.

Really, Maizono only wished she wasn’t here alone. Loneliness had always had a talent in digging into her, past her skin and defenses and everything else in-between until it latched onto her essence. It was what had taken her over back... _back_ when they had originally been given their motive. A whirlwind of ferocious panic had spun her thoughts down to the bone— _no my group mates no are they dead oh god they’re dead no no if he did this then what about my dad or my other friends or everyone I know or my entire life he could kill me everything I’ve worked for is gone, nononONO **NO** that **canthappen** —_and from there everything had just spiraled until she hadn’t even been sure what she was doing anymore.

But. Her mind had cleared. Those final moments on Naegi’s bathroom floor with a knife in her gut had been an oddly enlightening experience. Perhaps it was the blood loss; it had left Maizono’s mind too weak to be cluttered with her frantic and panicked thoughts. Or maybe it was Kuwata’s leftover stabwounds, proof that the weapon sliced through her and cut her down to her very core, pried out what really mattered and let her remember it again. In the end it didn’t matter how it had happened because Maizono could see clearly again, and she was struck by how it was both a breath of fresh air and a bucket of cold water thrown over her head. A relieving but painful jolt of reality.

The urge to grovel hit her again, but there was still no one to grovel too.

Off to her left, a crash and immediate string of viciously violent but colorful curses shattered the stilled air of the library she’d almost grown accustomed to. In Maizono’s startled surprise, her head snapped towards the sound so quickly it almost hurt.

A form at the opening of the aisle, spindly and swaying in place like an impatient child who had just been reprimanded, rubbed at their head grumpily. They had crashed into one of the standing displays full of books and knocked it over, almost as if they somehow hadn’t been able to see it.

_Who—?_

“Ouch.” The form, who was decidedly one of a girl, grumbled. “Damn, that actually hurt! You can bet I’d give it the good one-two if it was alive!”

After another moment of scrubbing at her face, the new girl righted her glasses a final time and turned to continue down the aisle. Then she caught sight of Maizono.

“That bozo was right? Whelp, you can bet I’m glad I didn’t wager my very own snippers on this whole thing like I was going to! That would have been a total blood bath. It isn’t my fault that he’s practically _never_ right, you know? That whole ‘33 percent’ thing is total bull if you ask me! All those magic types are after is a quick buck, the greedy lot of ‘em! I’d _actually_ bet my snippers on them all having themselves a nice orange ring with a whacky magic lantern to boot!”

It was...F— _Fukawa_?

There was something wrong with her, just totally and utterly wrong. After Maizono died something happened to her, something _changed_ about her, because this was not Fukawa and her glum attitude and mean spirit and hard shell and and _and_ ; what was she even _doing here_ with Maizono in the dead afterworld-spirit-realm-whatever-the-hell-it-was? She looked _inhuman_. 

A pair of strikingly volatile red eyes peered out at her from under Fukawa’s untidy fringe, while an alarmingly long tongue hung from an unsettlingly sharp smirk.

No doubt. _Inhuman_ was the only word to describe it.

Fukawa made an off-pitch hum in the back of her throat, hands clasp behind her. “Whaddya look so scared of? Little ‘ol me?” Fukawa laughed, something that was an uneven mix of a fussy housecat’s yowl and a hound dog’s overeager bark, but absolutely _not_ Fukawa. “I haven't even threatened you yet! At least wait until I pull out the main attraction!”

Maizono squeezed the carpet between her fingers a little tighter. “I’m not scared.” She said, because she definitely was scared and she definitely was confused, and Maizono was suddenly really tired of all of whatever _this_ was. Jeez, she should have just rotted away with the books.

“Of course, I totally _should_ be jostling all your jimmies! Don’t think me without manner, my darling little dear, but we’re in total sacred ground! The Sistine Chapel wishes it was as blessed as this room! You’re honestly committing so much blasphemy this very instant that I should skewer you where sit! _Two fold_! I’ll have you know, my White Knight—”

A new voice broke in and, at the sound of it, Maizono was assured that from that moment onwards things would only keep becoming worse and worse until she honestly won’t know what to do with herself anymore. The realization was not a nice one to have.

“Your harassment is quite unnecessary.”

Even once the prospect of murder had been introduced, Oogami had never quite faulted, keeping herself and others steady with her strangely powerful aura of ease. It was odd with her size, her _appearance_ , but Maizono had appreciated it all the same at the time.

But then, at that very moment, she wanted nothing more than to see something—confusion, alarm, desperation, panic, fear; _anything_ —on her face to tell Maizono that she wasn’t alone. That someone else was scared too. Because, well, Oogami couldn’t be so _calm_ and so _controlled_ , not with the unusual slump in her shoulders and defeated air and things that weren’t Oogami but still were and —  _how could she be so calm_?

Sayaka Maizono was dead and Sakura Oogami and Touko Fukawa were not. And yet here they were. With her.

“Hello Maizono,” Oogami said, voice even as per usual and the complete opposite of what Maizono was beginning to not just want, but to  _need_. “I am glad to see you again, health once more intact." She looked over towards the other. "As for you, it appears you have proven yourself useful in assisting in the search for the others despite my previous thoughts, but I am positive both Maizono and myself agree your tongue could have been better held. I expect better of you. She has not yet had the chance to become accustomed to your particular...oddities. If you continue on as you have thus far, I’m afraid our availability to search specifically for Togami shall stay low on our list of priorities.”

“Calm down, I was just having my cake and eating it too! Is that honestly such a crime? Orge-chi, I think you may be a little tense, maybe you’ve still got some of that little fun concoction you chugged in your system! Oi — want me to _check_?”

Oogami didn’t offer a response. Instead, she stared the other girl down.

Fukawa just bounced her shoulders up, still swaying. “Eh, everyone’s a critic these days!” She giggled, almost cutely.

With a skip in her step, Fukawa trotted to Maizono’s side. She craned her neck down at Maizono, teeth too sharp and smile too manic, an expression akin to what one would direct towards a childhood friend, but much too threatening to be truthful. Maizono was so engrossed in her almost wild expression that she didn’t notice the hand extended out to her until Fukawa commented.

“Don’t tell me you’re already _that_ scared!” Fukawa’s grin morphed into something closer to a childish pout. Her red irises seemed to flatten horizontally outwards. “I haven’t even pulled out my scissors! KYEHAHAHAHA!!!” Maizono flinched at the sudden burst of laughter. “That’s the _fun_ part!”

Maizono look to Oogami and, when she received a short nod from the larger girl, took a breath and accepted the hand. A shiver snuck down her spine when her fingers brushed across a deep, wide line along Fukawa’s palm, and the shiver returned when she caught sight of two similar but smaller cuts—Or maybe they were scars?—across her cheek and extended out from collar of her uniform. Had she always had those? Maizono wasn’t sure; she’d never gotten close enough to Fukawa, physically or otherwise, to notice. Well, either way, something about them was...odd. _Off_ , maybe. Maizono just couldn’t place it.

Fukawa tugged her roughly to her feet, which, Maizono realized almost three moments too late, were still quite asleep. Her legs quivered under her.

“Is something wrong, Maizono?” Oogami inquired. She watched Fukawa help push Maizono back against the bookcase—something _solid_ and _real_ , and, wow, Maizono really actually  _needed that_ —to keep her from collapsing back down.

_**Yes**. I’m dead and you two **aren’t** and I almost **murder** ed Kuwata and framed N **aegi** for it **even though** he was nothing but an abso **lut** ely won **derful person** to me and to everyone else and we’re **all here** where the **terrible** , terrible people like **me g** o, and **why** a **re you h** ere with **me**! I’m a monster! I deserve to burn or to rot!  So tell me,  **w** hy are you **here**!?_

She wanted to scream from the mountain top until her useless voice had gone raw and red, but no words would form on her lips and no sound would come from her throat. Maizono was too stunned, too confused, and too lost to speak. Everything was wrong and nothing was right, and that was just _too much_ for her. Dammit. _Dammit_.

She was dead. Maizono was supposed to be _dead_ , dammit!

Then — Then _why_ did she wake up in that library? And sit how she had when she _died_? Where did her wounds go; where had the knife went? What happened to Fukawa and Oogami, who were the same, and yet not at all? Why weren’t they looking at her like the absolute _monster_ she was, who abandoned her friends for her own stupid, _selfish_ fears and wants and needs and _weaknesses_? Why! Didn’t! They!  _Hate_! Her!

She didn’t understand.

Oogami watched her struggle, her face carefully portraying nothing other than her displeasure with Fukawa and a high level of patience as she waited for her answer. After a few long moments of nothing, she merely nodded.

“I understand you must be confused, Maizono, and perhaps even scared. This is all very strange and your worry is fair given the situation you’ve found yourself in. Personally, I myself feel quite similar about this new series of events, but you must make a decision to follow us or stay here. We cannot continue to linger about. There are others waiting patiently in the hall for us to return and one claims to have a sensible explanation for these new circumstances. You are free to stay here or follow us outside, and I will not force you to come along, but I would suggest it. Although, I only find it fair to warn you: Hagakure has made the situation sound grave, and it is likely we will come to encounter things that will be unpleasant. Information we would rather...do without. I cannot promise you will not learn things you could have gone without knowing. Now, what would your decision be?”

“I—I have one question,” She croaked out; Oogami gave a single nod, while Fukawa made a curious face and stepped backwards, hands rubbing together. “I died?”

Maybe she hadn't. Maybe it had all been a dream, a  _hallucination_ , that she'd cooked up with her overactive imagination, she'd never died and Kuwata had never killed her and she was just pretty messed up for even thinking that up in the first place,  _God_ , but Maizono was still overreacting to something that had never even happened. Hell, it could be her actual first day at Hope's Peak Academy that moment,  _maybe_. 

 _Maybe_.

But no, she realized at the girls' shift in their weight and how Fukawa giggled again. It wasn't her first day again and that wasn't a dream.

Like before, before this had all started and ended, for _Maizono_ , and Monokuma had never yet even _uttered_ the words ‘Graduation Plan’ to them and filled their minds—her mind, which she had just momentarily fooled into thinking had fooled itself, _Jesus_ she was _useless_ —with murder and escape and _fear_ , Oogami did not falter.

“Yes, Maizono. You did.”

If it was true, then she had to ask. She had to know. “And Naegi-kun?”

“I do not know.”

Maizono closed her eyes, took in a deep, slow breath to calm her too-quick paced heart, and opened her eyes back to the world she’d once thought that she had left behind. “Okay, yeah.” Maizono breathed. “I’m going to come with you.”

An endless maze of dust-filled bookcases made up the rest of the spacious library, of which Maizono seemed to have been dropped in the very center of. As she followed Oogami and Fukawa’s lead towards the exit, she couldn’t help but question how the two seemed to understand the room’s layout so well. It was slightly suspicious, but she decided it would be best to ignore it. There were a lot of things that just didn’t seem to match up, not to mention _make sense_ , anymore.

Once they’d emerged from the forest of leather books and their wizened bindings, Fukawa cheerfully took charge as they crossed the threshold. In a stroke of nervousness, she gripped Oogami’s hand tighter. Internally, Maizono was thankful the other hadn’t released her hand after her legs had become stable again. Any sort of comfort was very much needed at the moment.

Just as she had been told, two of their fellow students were loitering about the hallway when they exited.

The Ultimate Outlaw Biker Gang Leader caught Maizono’s eye first, leaning almost casually against one of the many tall white pillars that filled the hallway. His face was turned towards the ground, the shadow cast by his particular hair-style across his face obscuring his expression, and his arms were crossed tightly across his chest. It was odd. Oowada’s body language had changed, a shift from blatantly aggressive to rather defensive instead. It look as if he was trying to box himself in, seperate from the world around him.

Maizono paused, her hand slipping out from Oogami’s, surprised at the sudden change in the previously loud and aggressive delinquent. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with all of _them_? How had so much happened between her death and improbable resurrection to change each of them so very drastically? 

“Hey, hey! Maizono-chi!”

It wasn’t until she’d been picked up and practically held over his head that Maizono realized that Hagakure was there too. Instinctually, she yelped and flailed in surprise, and, when that was coupled with Hagakure’s own poor balance, the two ended up crashing to the floor in an awkward, top-heavy heap of arms and legs.Hagakure, ever quick to recover, payed no mind and pulled Maizono to his chest in an inescapable vice-like hug. She could feel his chest push outwards against her cheek as he laughed, loud and hard.

“Oh _Maizono-chi_ , it’s so great to see you again without a knife in your stomach or in some spooky Monokuma-made picture! You-You’ve been dead so long, I’m pretty sure I’d forgotten what you looked like! I mean, well, uh, _everyone_ probably did. Don’t take it personally, I mean, it’s was an entire month. Wait, wait; no, Naegi-chi must have remembered! He was so torn up about your death, there’s no way he forgot. He probably remembered all the way up until he got executed!”

Just between the crook of his arm, Maizono saw Oogami straighten in what seemed to be surprise. She said something softly to herself, looking questioningly towards Fukawa and frowning when she was sent only a wink in return.

Hagakure pulled back to smile reassuringly at her and, distantly, she noted the sheen of wetness in the corner of his eyes. “All that doesn’t matter anymore, though! You’re alive, I’m alive, and—and Naegi-chi is too! We’re _all_ alive and everything is going to be all better now! I’m just happy to see all everyone's faces again — I’m even happy to see the serial killer and that’s not something I’d _ever_ thought I’d say!” He laughed again.

“Oo-oo-ooh! Whodathunkit?” Fukawa pressed a hand over her heart. “Are you flirting with me, you naughty little bum? What a cougar, this one! Well, I may be a taken woman, but I definitely do know how to take a compliment! I love you too, Dreads!”

“What? C’mon you guys, we’ve been over this! I am _not_ a bum! I’m one of the only people here who even has a steady job!” Hagakure paused. “Wait a second, did you say _love_? Um, _hell no_! Seriously, don’t _say_ things like that! That’s a whole new level of weird I haven’t signed the necessary paperwork for!”

“Bum! We’ve got a bum on our hands here! Bum, bum, bum, _buuuuuuum_ ~”

“Stop it! Seriously!”

“ _Buuuuuuum_ ~”

“Oogami-chi, make her knock it off! I’m a respected _leader_ in the clairvoyance business! I _set the bar_ for rookies! I am _not_ a bum!”

The bickering between the two continued to toss itself back and forth between them, oddly natural despite Fukawa’s sudden transformation. It would have been an interesting sight if Maizono hadn’t been more concerned with the previous statement.

Because...no. No. Did he say that Naegi was...executed...?

...Executed...

 _And there it is_ , Maizono thought bitterly, as she prayed her breathing would stay even,  _I'm losing it again_.

Because. Oh...Oh _God_. Naegi was dead. It was her fault. His execution was _all her fault_! It _had_ to have been, there was absolutely no other way it could have happened. Naegi was too gentle a soul to murder someone and he wouldn’t dare attack Monokuma again after his unsuccessful attempt in the classroom when he had went to...to _comfort her_. Yeah. She remembered. She remembered the whole thing. After all they watched their video motive. After she watched the video and saw group on the ground and— _nnononONO **NO** that **canthappen**_ —and. Yeah.

He was such a _wonderful_ person. Why did Naegi ever bother to talk to someone as terrible as her? He was—is— _had been_ —wonderful.

And now he was dead, and Maizono was alive again for some reason because she **_had_ ** died in his bathroom that night and Kuwata _had_ killed her even though it was supposed to be _him_ who would die die—but why, why did she pick him, why not gentle Fujisaki or self-centered Togami or gullible Asahina or someone who _made sense_ to murder—but—but she’d picked none of them so it was Kuwata instead, then _her_ , then Naegi and maybe everyone else, because who even knew what else Maizono had managed to just utterly **fuck _up_** when she acted like the selfish brat she was and _oh God_ she—

“Hey, uh, you. Calm down. You look like you’re panickin’ over there.”

Fukawa chortled, an ugly sound from between her fingers. “She probably _looks_ like she’s panicking because she _is_ panicking.” She said. “And I thought you bikers were all ladies’ men! Where are all those infamous smooth moves? Here you are, Mr. Macho Manly Man, totally _screwing_ up your archetype, to detention and back!”

Maizono looked up, startled at the sudden address, to see Oowada only a couple feet away from her with his arms still crossed. He must have pushed himself from his pillar at some point and walked over, maybe in concern? Oowada seemed poised to help her to her feet if she needed it; tensed to move, but also evidently hesitant to make his way any closer without some signal of approval from her.

The almost funny inquiry as to why Oowada hadn’t been so hesitant to punch Naegi in the face on their first day together popped into her mind, a stroke of pain in her stomach following, and Maizono averted her eyes. There was a stretch of silence.

“Are you alright?” Oowada repeated, what had previously been a vaguely uncomfortable expression now much less vague. Looking back up, she could see that Oogami, Hagakure and Fukawa had turned their attentions to her as well. Maizono flushed.

“Look, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” And, somehow, the dam was broken and all of the thoughts that had been bouncing around her empty skull pushed their way through the gap. “I made you all think it was Naegi-kun who killed me, but it _wasn’t_ , it was Kuwata-kun and I did my best to...to try and write out his name, but everything just — it all  _hurt_ so badly so I probably couldn’t even do _that_ right and I’m just the useless idol girl who did nothing but look pretty and get everyone _killed_ because she was _scared_. I know none of you will forgive me, _please don’t_ , I don’t even _deserve it_. Naegi-kun was executed because of me, and the rest of you probably were too, a-and I’m _terrible_. I—I didn’t _mean_ –”

“Maizono.” Oogami’s voice was stern and solid, but gaze much softer when she looked up to meet her eyes. It took Maizono a moment to realize her vision was blurred because of tears.

She wiped at her eyes and sniffled as quietly as possible, nodding. “Y-Yes?”

“We were not executed for your actions, be it your attempt murder or the act of your murder itself. While I’m unsure what Hagakure means when he speaks of Naegi’s execution, I myself am sure that he was still alive when I passed. In fact, it was Naegi who preserved against our doubts and solved your murder, determined to make sure that exact scenario you’ve just said did not happen. You didn’t doom him to an early grave, Maizono. Even if we had mistaken him for Kuwata, it still would not have been your fault.” Her lips upturned slightly, into an almost wry smile. “As Naegi has said from the beginning, the Mastermind is the true culprit. We should not indict ourselves for what we’ve done, when the true blame falls to them.”

Oogami fell silent, most likely to allow her words to soak in more thoroughly. After a few beats of what was an almost a comfortable silent, she turned to Oowada.

“That also includes you, Oowada. I wish for you to remember that.”

He snorted and his arms tightened. Almost cautiously, Oowada stepped backwards; it didn’t look to be for his own protection. “Like hell I’m not responsible for somethin’,” He muttered. There was a bitter note to his voice. “Whatever. Look, are we done with all the guilt shit? Yamada should be done with the locker rooms if he isn’t just sitting around on his ass, so let’s just go over there already. Even if we can’t go up, we can still prolly go down.”

“Down?”

Hagakure, who appeared to be _exponentially_ glad the heavier parts of conversation had past as well, smiled at her. “Yeah! You didn’t live long enough to see the second floor, did you? Well, this it! Monokuma opened it up after your trial. Yamada-chi offered to check out the locker rooms and pool down the hall over that way, to make sure no one else was lying around asleep in there.” He laughed again, and Maizono was tempted to ask just where he found his seemingly endless supply of optimism. She remembered him to be a lot more fidgety during her three days alive. “I still can’t believe you were in the library with me and I didn’t notice!”

Maizono returned the smile, almost positive no would be able to notice how shaky it was. She felt a little less queasy, at least. “Y-Yeah, weird.”

“As much as I _hate_ to agree with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter over there—because what a _chump_ , jeez—I’m starting to get a teeny bit _antsy_ , if y’know what I mean!” Fukawa clapped her hands together. “Let’s boogie on out!”

Oowada made a face. “I may not look it, but I know when I’m bein’ made _fun of._ Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” The expression turned into a snarl.

“Huh? You seriously don’t know?” Fukawa looked genuinely surprised before she turned thoughtful, tapping a finger to her chin. Her eyes flashed in a disturbingly devious fashion. “I swear I’da told you _all_ about it by now, even if it was just to mess with you!”

Oogami’s words were more of a chastisement than recommendation. “Perhaps we should wait for things such as that. Those topics aren’t well suited as joking material.”

Fukawa poked out her tongue at the other girl, while Maizono attempted not to wince at its ridiculous length. “I’m still offering that check-up, Ogre-chi! Free of charge!”

Understandably she was ignored and Oogami continued to lead them towards where both the stairs and Yamada waited. Oowada followed after her silently, while Fukawa giggled to herself a moment longer before skipping after them.

Maizono walked beside Hagakure, who had helped pull her back up to her feet in a much gentler fashion than Syo had offered back inside of the library.

“—Yeah, so, I woke up in that library around the front door all alone — or, uh, I _thought_ that I was alone, but I guess that’s not true is it? Either way, I didn’t really think to look around for anyone else in there, so I just kinda freaked out and went into the hallway. I mean, the library was a pretty sudden change of scenery, you know? Well, Ogre-chi and Yamada-chi had already left their classroom to see if they could find some other people, and we all ran into each other. Yamada-chi suggested we look in some of the other rooms, and that’s when we found Oowada-chi and Syo just waking up in the other class.

They were still pretty sleepy and stuff, so we waited around for them to wake up and, while we were in there, Ogre-chi figured out that there were probably two people in each room. She said there had to have been someone else in the library with me—that’s you, Maizono-chi—and that we needed to check the other rooms on the floor too just in case some other people were still around. No one really wanted to go into the locker rooms for _obvious_ reasons so we were all surprised when Yamada-chi volunteered. It might just not bother him to go in there or something? Uh, anyway, Ogre-chi and Syo ended up finding you in the library. Everyone else’s gotta be downstairs, because they’re all _definitely_ okay.”

His last sentence came out almost as... _self-assurance_ to her, but Maizono chose not to comment. Instead, she asked, “Who’s Syo?” Maizono was almost positive they had no classmates named Syo or with a nickname even similar to the word. It struck a chord with her however, something uncomfortably familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. “And what’s wrong with the locker rooms?”

Hagakure shuddered. “I’d rather never go into the girl’s locker room again if I can help it. I mean, I’m not Togami-chi here — dead chicks don’t give me ideas on how to screw with people.” He answered with another shiver.

Well that was _definitely_ not the answer she was expecting, but, wait, did he mean—? Was Hagakure trying to tell her that Togami got off on dead girls or something? And he—he had probably saw Maizono while she was still dead, and that meant he— _!_

Maizono shuddered too. She felt both mildly disgusted and in need of a hot, hot shower.

“Hagakure,” Oogami cut in smoothly, her eyes narrowed at him. “Perhaps it would be best if you kept quiet for now. It seems your explanations leave something to be desired.” Her sharp gaze flickering towards Fukawa and Oowada, who had passed her along the way, she continued. “And _must_ I remind you that some here are most obviously quite far from recovered from the events that took place in those locker rooms.”

Oogami’s expression darkened quite threateningly; Hagakure cringed and shut his mouth, the _snap_ audible from Maizono’s spot beside him.

Well. The apparent need to evade the subject didn’t tell Maizono much more aside from the fact that either Oowada or Fukawa had been involved in the ‘Locker Room Incident’ while she was still dead, and whichever it was definitely hadn’t been given enough time to cope with the situation. Oowada seemed much more likely, considering the statement Oogami had directed at him earlier and his response, but there’s was something just so _wrong_ with Fukawa that she couldn’t really ignore that possibility either.

It probably wasn’t worth the energy to ask anyway, what with their almost annoying avoidance of answering her questions. Really, Maizono was beginning to get more than a little frustrated with all of these sudden mysteries.

 _It’s nice to pretend like I’m starting to understand something that’s going on, at least_ , Maizono mused to herself. The thought felt rightfully bitter.  _And move on from the...Togami thing? **Ew**._

“Oh, _oh_. Now we’re getting fired up!” Fukawa crowed victoriously, throwing her hands up. “We found us a Yamada! Fresh off the grill, and ready for a nice hard lickin’!”

Yamada looked essentially the same as he had that first day; there was no sudden change in attitude like Fukawa or Oowada, or anything physical like Fukawa’s possibly new scars. Maizono thought he sounded a little quiet as he mumbled about an absence of anyone in the boys’ locker room or pool, but his loud, buoyant personality in the entrance hall might have just been her imagination. It wasn’t as if they had really shared all that many conversations together.

“You didn’t check the girl’s locker room?” Oowada phrased it more as a demand than a question. He seemed suddenly twitchy about the idea, in both a verbal and literal sense. His hands had actually begun to jerk and spasm, though Oowada didn’t act as if he noticed.

Ah. Okay. It _had_ to be Oowada who was involved in the mysterious ‘Locker Room Incident’ or else he wouldn't react so much to news about the place. All Maizono had left to figure out was what had actually happened.

“I can’t even _get into_ the gi-girl’s locker room!” Yamada hissed in retaliation, stumbling over his words in a nervous sort of way that she had never associated with him. His defensive attitude withdrew almost immediately, and he rubbed his hands together. “I knocked on the door and no one answered. If someone had been inside they would have come out.” Yamada looked down. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

It seemed as if he’d done the most sensible thing in his situation—well, without having to go get one of the other girls to open it, Maizono supposed—but it was quite clear the rest of the group didn’t completely agree with the sentiment.

Whatever it was that happened in the locker room must have been incredibly terrible for such a strong reaction from the rest of the group. Aside from Fukawa, apparently. She didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, though not much seemed as if it bothered her anymore.

“I must say, I don’t like it. There is a chance Monokuma had decided to be cruel when choosing where we...awoke.” Oogami mused. If his expression told anything of how he was feeling, Oowada looked to be in complete agreement. “I will go check, just to be sure that he hasn’t—”

“I think Yamada-kun’s right. If he knocked on the door, it would have woken up anyone who might’ve been inside, right?” Maizono interjected, mostly due to the uncomfortable sinking of her stomach at Yamada’s startled frown. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t like it. “There’s probably no one inside. We’re good to move downstairs already and look there for anyone else.”

Oowada didn’t respond, but Hagakure gave an easy nod and announced, “Forward march!” with a bright smile. Hooking his arms between Yamada’s and Fukawa’s, he trotted down the steps with the two in tow. Fukawa called out a remark, likely something particularly scalding or insulting if any of her past statements were any indication, but Maizono wasn’t able to catch what it was exactly that she had said. After a single moment’s hesitation, she followed down after them; it was almost an entire half minute before two more sets of footsteps started behind her, one just two steps behind the other.

A wave of relief washed over her at the familiar sight of the first floor, and Maizono almost wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. Her entire life was destroyed there, her’s and fourteen others, all because of some stupid sadistic robot bear. It was a quite literal Hell on earth and there was Maizono, relieved to see it all again. Even with the tension in the air that never dissipated and the dim atmosphere of the entire floor, she was _relieved_.  

The six regrouped at the stair’s bottom, Hagakure and Oowada momentarily breaking off to check through the gym and its entrance for others and returning empty handed.“Monokuma wasn’t even in there,” Hagakure commented when they exited back through the doors, drooping in obvious disappointment. “He’s _always_ waiting around in the gym when weird stuff happens!”

Eager to help, Maizono checked the girl’s bathroom. _Just in case_ , she thought. “It’s completely empty in there.” She reported back, also disappointed. So much for helping. Yamada’s search in the boy’s bathroom yielded the same results.

The group continued their search as they moved towards Hotel Despair, but the infirmary, AV room, student store, and both individual classrooms proved the same. An almost disheartened feeling hit the six as they reached the gate that connected to the living quarters.

“There’s no fucking way there no one’s here. We _can’t_ be the only ones around.” Oowada grumbled, his eyes dark and aimed towards classroom 1-B, as if it were entirely the empty room’s fault.

The group had stopped just outside Hotel Despair and lingered in the corresponding hallway, hesitant to move on. Comparing notes about the circumstances hadn’t changed the results though, not matter how much they talked over the issue. There was no one else there and, with the apparent third floor still blocked off, the hotel was their last option for finding anymore living students. And something about that just... _bothered_ them.

“I must agree with you.” Oogami said, her voice both grave with worry and frustrated with their situation. Her light eyes flickered over them, before they turned towards the other end of the hall. “Hagakure, you checked the entrance, correct? I recall having assigned you to look there.”

“No?” Hagakure blinked. “That was Syo’s job! I was supposed to get the school store with Oowada-chi.”

Oowada’s glare shifted from the door towards Hagakure. “No, you weren’t.”

“Hold your horses, right there! Judge, I totally plead the fifth on this one.” Fukawa didn’t sound particularly invested in the dispute; she didn’t look it either, nonchalantly picking at her nails in boredom. “Potato Chip and me had the elevator doors, to see if they’d open or were locked again. Serial Killer’s honor!”

Was _Fukawa_ this Syo person? She kept responding to the name and hadn’t bothered to correct anyone yet. And had she just called herself a...serial killer? Hagakure had mentioned that earlier too, in his ranting.

Maybe it was all just part of her personality change? A new identity to help cope with the situation? Maizono still couldn’t quite wrap her head around it.

“Does this mean the entrance hall was left unchecked?” Oogami clarified, looking amongst them for an answer. She sighed when no one responded. “We must work on our communication as a group. In the meantime, we will look into the entrance hall in case, by chance, there is someone inside. Hagakure and Oowada, I will request the both of you stay here to keep an eye on the hotel’s exit. Someone may wander out and we would not want to miss them. Yamada, Maizono and Syo may come with me and if no one is inside then we shall move on to the hotel together. Does everyone understand?”

No one offered a protest to the orders.

Oogami nodded. “Good. Let us hurry, we’ve wasted enough of our time here.”

Oowada settled back against the wall, similar to how he’d been with one of the pillars outside the library, with crossed arms while Hagakure stood in the hallway’s center awkwardly. His face was twisted, as if he was urged to try conversation with the clearly uninterested other. Hagakure sent the four a wave as they made their way back down the hallway, eyes still darting between them and Oowada.

As usual, the doors to the school’s entrance were cracked open, the part between them filled with the odd black void that made it impossible to peer inside. Oogami pushed the doors open without hesitation, Maizono and Yamada almost hiding behind her as she did. Fukawa skipped ahead.

It took Maizono’s eyes a moment to adjust to the harsh, bright lights of the entrance hall. Her ears, however, wasted no time in catching the excited shout that sounded in front of her.

“ _Darling_!” Fukawa’s voice was practically a squeal as she clapped her hands together, legs shivering and knocking at the knees.

Byakuya Togami paused, calculated and so, so careful. He withdrew himself from the mailbox, though Maizono wasn’t quite sure what he had been doing inside it to begin with, and turned towards them. His face was filled with absolute purpose and a strong touch of annoyance; his eyes, however, were nothing short of furious and rabid.

“ _Don’t_ you _da—_ ”

Before the statement could be finished, Fukawa was on the other side of the room. She tackled him down almost viciously, giving Togami little time to react, and straddled his waist, hands pressed _hard_ against his shoulders. Togami made of noise of protest, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Byakuya-sama, doth my eyes deceive me! I was a fool to be worried for someone as wonderful as you, my White Knight! How could I have been so blind, even while wearing these dorkishly unstylish glasses?! But, _woe_ , how could I have helped myself? Our duel was too glorious! Look, lookie here!”

Fukawa’s eyes glowed as she tugged down her uniform’s collar, the uneven line stretching across her white skin. She then held out her right hand to reveal a similar scar, and pointed almost frantically towards her also marked cheek.

“I have your markings on me, the ones from our _final moments_ together! Don’t I just look _ravishing_ like this? KYEHAHAHAHA!!! You’d look even _more_ delicious if you had one of mine! Especially if it could cover up the little ditty up here on this column of total pale _goodness_! I’m almost hurt you would cheat on me like that, letting another woman mark you all up! But don’t worry a _hair_ on your head about it, I’ve got the perfect cure for our Couple Blues, babe! Just sit still, Byakuya-sama~!”

Maizono refused to let herself gasp when Fukawa pulled two sets of scissors out from under her skirt, but she did allow herself to step closer to Oogami’s solid presence. Neither Yamada or Oogami reacted to the sudden reveal but Togami went totally still, a shadow across his eyes and muscles tight.

It—It had to be another part of her new personality. A _coping mechanism_.

Fukawa wouldn’t actually _hurt_ anyone with them, she was verbally crude but physically, _physically_ , she was absolutely docile. Oogami wasn’t even moving to stop her so. There was no way. Fukawa wouldn’t _do_ anything.

“‘til death does us part, and all that.” Fukawa said with a flippant roll of her eyes, arms raised back above her head and ready to plunge downwards. “For our future and health, Byakuya-sama! Well, _mine_? Whatever!”

She wouldn’t. Do. It.

Fukawa’s arms moved.

“Fukawa-san, stop it!” Maizono went to run towards them, went to do _something_ because she couldn’t stand to watch her just _stab_ Togami while no one actually _did_ _anything_ , but Oogami’s grip on her shoulder was too tight and Togami was probably going to _die right in front of them_ and—

“Get off of me.” Togami’s voice was terribly hoarse and scratchy—painful to listen to, let alone speak with; like barbed wire against a chalkboard—but his words were solid and absolute. Fukawa’s hands stopped, suddenly so still that Maizono would have sworn they’d never moved in the first place. Her arms dropped to her sides, the scissors scratching the marble tiles with a thin hiss.

And then she could see it, the ugly jagged scar that stood out against Togami’s throat, exposed between his shirt’s undone, sagged collar. He’d never worn his shirt so  messily like that before, she was absolutely _sure_ of it. Maizono couldn’t tell if he’d always had the scar or if it was just another new addition.

Fukawa cocked her head, similar to how a young, curious pup would, her tongue lolling from the corner of her mouth as her expression shifted from ecstatic to excitedly inquisitive. She blinked. “What do you mea—?”

Togami’s fists shook almost violently, before he gave Fukawa a rough shove off of him. She went sprawling to his left and he pushed himself up to one knee, leaning against it. “I told you to _get off_ of me you _wretched beast of a woman_!” He roared, his face flushed to an angry red. Togami’s entire body began to shake, and he scratched at his forearm.

In a flurry of awkward movements, Fukawa scrambled up from her back and stared at him, scissors beside her forgotten. Maizono had never seen someone look so confused.

“Don’t you _ever_ touch me again.” Togami snarled. He kept clawing at his jacket’s sleeve. “You are a _monster_ — a _vile, sickening_ piece of _shit_ , and I will have nothing to with you ever again! Do you hear me?! I would _kill you again_ if that’s what it takes to drill this through your _damn thick skull_!”

“Byakuya-kun!” Yamada gaped at him, both Oogami and Maizono feeling similarly stunned at his cruel words. “What— _What_ are you doing? Don’t s-say stuff like that to her!”

Togami only then turned to look at the three, cluttered together across the room. He stumbled back to his feet, straightened, and sneered. “And why shouldn’t I?” Togami countered, a sudden mix of total calm and annoyed scorn. “Is it because you’ve asked me, all nice and chivalrously? Like some silly knight, hiding behind their shining armor.” He scoffed. “Don’t waste my time, you sniveling behemoth! That _disgusting woman_ hasn’t been given a _fraction_ of what she deserves by me! I will have no sympathy for the pathetic psychopath who ruined my life! Not after everything she’s done to me.”

He was furious — no, Togami was _beyond_ that, something boiling and indescribable aimed towards Fukawa, with just enough spilled over to spare some cruelty for the rest of them. Togami towered over Fukawa, eyes narrowed downwards at her frozen form. His hand hadn’t stopped scratching.

Beside Maizono, Oogami was tensed and coiled, as if she were preparing herself to jump between Fukawa and Togami the moment things went from bad to worse. Like most things, Maizono didn’t understand why the situation was even _happening_.

“W-Well, Togami-kun, I’m sure she didn’t mean whatever she did.” Maizono tried. Her eyes darted towards Oogami. “So please stop it, okay? There’s no reason to be so mean about it!”

Again Togami scoffed at them. “Stop? Stop _what_? All I demand is a fifty foot radius between her and I at all times and the assurance that she never tries to speak another _worthless_ word to me again, no matter the circumstances. Consider it an unwritten restraining order it that will soothe your pathetic hearts, I don’t honestly care.” Togami’s line of sight swiveled back to Fukawa, who had yet to move—yet to _breath—_ since his tirade had started. “I hope you understand _all_ that I’ve said, you piece of garbage, because I _refuse_ to passively play along with your _disgusting fantasies_ any longer and I _refuse_ to be _inflicted_ by even a whiff of _your presence_. You’d be best to find some other unlucky soul to cling so _desperately_ to, because from this moment onwards, I can _assure_ you, _it will not be me_.”

She watched, fascinated, as Togami’s shoulders lifted, as if some invisible weight had been dispelled. Maizono’s eyes darted towards Fukawa, stock-still and wide-eyed and unresponsive, and she knew what the weight had been.

Without so much as another glance at the bespectacled girl, Togami spun on his heel and stalked to the door. He paused as he passed there trio, his gaze sliding to Oogami.

“The e-Handbooks of the dead students are gone, all but three broken ones.” He commented simply, the epitome of a calm after the storm. He pushed open the double doors with more force than necessary, a metallic _slam_ from their impact with the walls; no one moved to follow him out into the halls.

Maizono forced out a breath, feeling both unreasonably frustrated and pitying, and looked out at Fukawa, both Oogami and Yamada already speedily making their way across the entrance hall towards her. Maizono jogged after them.

“He didn’t mean it!” Yamada blurted, sweating slightly as he and Oogami hovered in front of her. He paused to gather himself, wiping his brow nervously. “Byakuya-kun is cruel, but n- _never_ that badly! I think something happened to him, but...uh...y-you shouldn’t take it that personally!” His eyes darted to the side. “You know how he gets when he’s mad.”

Sidestepping the two, Maizono lowered herself to the ground as gracefully as she could and pulled Fukawa towards her in a hug. The other still hadn’t moved, her face stuck in shock as her tongue lolled limply out of the corner of her mouth, and Maizono worried just how deeply Togami’s words had cut her. She clutched Fukawa either way, rubbing her back in slow circles and hoping it offered even the smallest amount of comfort and compassion; it was the sort of comfort Maizono herself had been desperate for and the only idea that had came to mind.

“I’m sure if we just talked to him, he’d apologize! I—I can go after Byakuya-kun right now and ask him to—”

Oogami held up her hand, halting Yamada’s increasingly flustered babbling; Maizono held Fukawa closer as she started to shake. “I think Togami was quite serious, Yamada.” She disagreed. Oogami hesitated, appearing suddenly just as unsure as to how she should assist as Yamada was, before she placed a calloused hand on Fukawa’s shoulder between Maizono’s looped arms. “Still, you do have a point. Togami can have an incredible temper on him at times, though I’ve never seen him react so explosively. Still, do not take his words to heart. He _will_ apologize for his actions later.” She clenched her free fist. “I can assure you that.”

Against her hands, Fukawa back began to heave. Maizono gave a soft squeeze and continued to rub. “Hey, hey...it’s really okay, you can go ahead and let it all out, Fukawa-san. If crying will make you feel better, then no one here will judge you, okay?” She said slowly and, what she _hoped_ , soothingly. “Boys like him can’t be trusted anyway, you know? They always go and say mean things when they’re angry without any thought about who they might hurt. Okay, come on, let it all out.”

A high sound bubbled up in Fukawa’s throat as her back began to spasm harder, and Maizono gave her another squeeze and whisper of “It’s okay.” Then she realized.

That wasn’t the sound of someone sobbing. No... No that couldn’t be right. That was _laughter_. Fukawa was _laughing_.

“F–...Fukawa? U-Uhm, _Syo_?” Maizono tried, her stomach twisting up uncomfortably. Her hands stop moving, but she couldn’t seem to will them to uncoil from Fukawa’s shoulder. Oogami’s hand had left her shoulder. “Are you...feeling alright?”

Fukawa leered into Maizono’s face, until it was Maizono letting go and scrambling back to get away. Those eyes were _insane_. She could  _take them_ like  _that_.

“Alright?” Fukawa parroted, sounding abruptly breathless. Her delighted eyes shined with a bright madness and her teeth gnawed at her bottom lip, as if she was trying to contain her monstrous grin. “Am I alright, you say? How stupid! Why, I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly alright — no, overtly alright — no, _astronomically alright_! KYEHAHAHAHA!!!”

At the sudden bout of laughter Maizono unconsciously jerked, Fukawa’s words sinking in with a certain measure of hesitation. The other girl’s cheeks had flushed dramatically and her glasses had started to fog from her hot, panting breaths. Fukawa looked _hungry_.

“Did you see, did you see?” Fukawa scooped up the scissors with both hands. She held them up, fingers white. “Did you see did you see _did you see_? Well, _did you_?” Her pupils were hardly pinpricks.

Maizono couldn’t find words. Her throat felt dry and her stomach hurt.

“Syo, perhaps you should—”

Fukawa didn’t give Oogami a chance to finish, cutting her off with a squeal. “Lucky souls! With your own two eyes you just witnessed it all! My sexy hunk of a _boy_ just laid down the law on his defenseless little woman in an act of _pure domination_! A _real man_! _Ahhhh_ ~ That was so unbelievably hot, I-I can’t even contain myself! My toes are already _curling_ here! Byakuya-sama knows how to turn me on with just his words! _Words_!”

Maizono began to crawl backwards, closer to Oogami and Yamada. And.  _Far_ from Fukawa, in her sudden state.

She swooned, bending backwards to the point that the crown of her head brushed the floor, before she suddenly straightened again. Fukawa’s eyes glinted with determination, her hand slamming her pair of scissors into the floor tiles with enough force to wedge them inside the marble. “That’s it! _Kaplooey_! This serial killer’s found her perfect man! Byakuya-sama’s more than just another hottie I wanna to give my _special care_ and lovin’ to! He’s my match, through and through! There isn’t a doubt in my mind! There’s no way I could ever settle for another _boy_ , not after I’ve seen the work of such a _man_. He can match me _and_ my snippers, and then he can wrangle me to the ground and—and— _Ahhhh_ ~” Her face was red as her eyes rolled back, lips wet with drool.

For the third time that day, Maizono was pulled back up to her feet. Oogami—her face somehow not betraying even the _slightest_ hints of discomfort—hefted her up by her thin arms and pulled Maizono over to stand beside her, probably out of pity at that point. Fukawa was still seated on her knees, scissors imbedded into the ground beside her and hands locked onto her thighs in what appeared to be a death-grip. She had begun to alternate between muttering rapidly to herself with a smirk and her particularly sharp cackle.

“I think that is enough, Syo.” Oogami said, stern. “We agreed to continue onwards once we checked with the entrance hall and we have fulfilled that goal. We have _finished_ here.”

 _Click_.

They all stopped; Yamada’s head snapped up to the ceiling.

“ _Hello, hello?_ Ahem _. Newly revived students, this is your beloved Headmaster Monokuma speaking! Now that everyone’s up and at ‘em, I’d like for you all to get together in the commons area so we can talk this whole thing out together, like friends should! That’s right outside the cafeteria, for anyone who forgot! Anyone who’s already there can just stay put until the rest of you all find your way out there. And don’t get any ideas about ignoring me, we can’t start until everyone gets their behinds out there for the celebration. Any ditchers will get punished for delaying the party, that’s a_ promise _from my end!_ Upupupu _! I’ll see everyone_ beary _soon!_ ”

A long moment passed before anyone moved, Oogami swooping forward to drag Fukawa up to her feet. After a short look at the other two, she began to gently but firmly lead the Fukawa—still babbling and laughing, and _something else_  entirely Maizono couldn’t even _begin_ describe—to the doors. Maizono waited for Yamada to finish his anxious glances at the ceiling—as if he were worried the machine guns installed at the door would suddenly decide that they’d lingered too long and fill them with holes for their supposed rule-breaking—and start to shuffle behind them before she stumbled after as well.

Maizono could understand his concern. She’d tried that look before, and it really didn’t fit anyone well.

Oowada was upon them as soon as Oogami made it out the door. “What the fuck was up with him? Togami looked like he was gonna shank anyone that got too close to ‘im.” He looked over them. “And what’s wrong with _her_ now?” He motioned to Fukawa, whose ramblings immediately turned to curses upon Oowada, his Mother, and his motorcycle for good measure.

Oogami’s grip on Fukawa’s shoulder and upper arm released as she jerked her arm, eyes dark but excited and tongue slivering as she marched determinedly towards the hotel’s gate. Oowada stepped out of her path when she made no indication she would swerve to the side, eyebrows raised.

“It seems he’s become tired with both Syo _and_ Fukawa’s attentions, and decided to tell her as much.” Oogami sighed.

He looked back towards the girl, but she had already rounded the corner of the AV room. “Damn,” Oowada whistled. He nodded back down the hall where Fukawa had gone. “Well, uh, anyway, Hagakure took off for the hotel after that announcement, probably scared of pissing someone off. He’s even more of a wuss then I remember, I guess. Said something about hair clips?”

Maizono blinked. “Why?”

“Like I know.” Oowada shrugged. “I decided to stick around and wait for you all.”

Oogami looked down. “We should be leaving soon as well. It would be unwise to incur Monokuma’s wrath, however unintentional.”

Yamada made a sound of agreement, while Maizono and Oowada nodded. With one final look back down the rest of the hall, towards the gymnasium and stairs to the second floor, Oogami waved for them to follow her.

The small remainder of the first floor was walked at a fairly brisk pace in comparison to before, with Yamada and Oowada both poking their heads into the AV room and two classrooms as a final—though, at that point, obviously unnecessary—check into each room for any stragglers. For Oowada, it almost seemed to be a routine type impulse.

Still, Maizono couldn’t help but notice how Oowada not only avoided the red doors when the group passed them, but pulled Yamada back when he attempted to go to them. His hands had even started their odd jerk—Shake? _Vibration?—again._

The doors might have been the elevator Fukawa and Yamada had been assigned to check by Oogami earlier, as they’d previously been locked and Maizono was almost certain there was no where else for an elevator to just _hide,_ but Oowada almost seemed cautious of the doors. That in itself was enough to made her suspicious. She would have asked, maybe casually questioned Oogami on whether or not they’d been opened up after her death like the second floor and nurse’s office had, but by the time the thought had found itself in her mind the entryway was in front of them and it was too late to jump back to the subject.

And waiting for there for their little group was, for all intents and purposes, everyone.

Fukawa was the first face Maizono caught when they made their way into Hotel Despair, her expression suddenly pleasant and almost a little endearing. Even with her tongue, something Maizono couldn’t quite tell how she accomplished. Fukawa gave her a cheery wave from her position of leaning forward on the gate’s left hinge.

By the time the rest of their little posse had reached the outside of cafeteria, it seemed that Hagakure had already assimilated himself into the group. His hands were resting loosely on Fujisaki’s thin shoulders, holding her close to him in what almost appeared to be a hug despite the slanted and uncomfortable quirk of her expression. She offered him one of her cute little smiles nonetheless and listened as he chattered on, about what even Fujisaki was probably unsure of.

Unlike most others Maizono had encountered, she couldn’t detect much of a personality change in the smaller girl aside from her sudden new habit of tugging at the hem of her skirt. Still shy, still quiet, still timid — still Fujisaki. It was nice to see someone so _unchanged_.

Leaned up against the cafeteria door beside them was Asahina and Kuwata, her arm wrapped around the other’s waist to help keep him upright and steady. Asahina was balanced on her unmarred right leg for the most part, a thick misshaped bite mark stretching from her upper thigh down to her lower calf and indented into the bronzed flesh of her left. While she looked like she could have managed to stand without him, Kuwata seemed to have been in need of much more assistance keeping his balance — or generally upright, for that matter.

Maizono could almost feel bile rise up her throat at the sight of him.

Kuwata’s nose was dramatically crooked, as if someone had pushed it to the side and it had never shifted back to its original position, and his jaw seemed to be unhinged from the rest of his skull and hung dumbly, as if it had been warped to the point that it was no longer able to click in place. His once athletically tan skin had become a discolored mix of blacks, blues, browns, and purples, and it looked like welts had been all but carved into the exposed sections of his skin. Whatever the original wounds were, they had all but healed. The remnants were far from faded though; with each movement Kuwata’s body was a chorus of pops and cracks, of damaged joints and ill-healed bones.

Whatever had done this to Kuwata had been brutal and, with a lurch in her stomach, Maizono had a feeling that the ‘whatever’ probably had a lot to do with her.

She was going to be _sick_.

As quickly as she could, Maizono redirected her attention pointedly away from Kuwata. She caught sight of Togami looming a ways behind Hagakure, his collar clumsily buttoned back up to how she remembered him to wear it, and moved on. His dark expression had made it clear he was still in a vicious mood after his rant at Fukawa and she really had no desire to think any more on whatever _that_ had been about.

Both Ishimaru and Naegi were somewhat off to the side from the other five, the prior listening intently with the occasional nod as the latter spoke with exaggerated body movements, Naegi’s arms sweeping towards the others in the room and motioning back towards himself back as he talked. The two appeared to be incredibly wrapped up in their conversation, almost as if it were a debate. That was strange — Naegi had never been the type for an argument before.

Ishimaru, like a majority of her other classmates, had also somehow undergone a noticeable change to his appearance. A sizeable chunk of his hair had turned a stark white and, instead of standing strictly upwards like the rest of the hair on his head, drooped downwards onto his forehead as if they were unplanned fringe of some sort. It didn’t necessarily look _bad_ , honest; Maizono was more so confused as to where Ishimaru had found the supplies to bleach his hair in the first place. And _why_? It didn’t feel like it fit his clean cut personality at all.

Naegi, on the other hand, looked similar to when she had last seen him— _don’t think about it, don’t think about it_ —but there was something _off_ about him. It was impossible to place but the feeling that there was something different about him wouldn’t stop nagging her. Had he always been that...short?

It was then that Hagakure looked up from his obviously one-sided conversation and caught sight of Maizono, Oowada, Fukawa, Yamada and Oogami in the entryway. He grinned and waved to them.

“Hey! Don’t just stand around you guys, come on over!” He called. Fujisaki paled when she glanced over, ducking out of his grip and slipping behind him. Hagakure didn’t seem to mind, but turned his head to look at her. “You okay, Fujisaki-chi?”

Ishimaru looked up, and choked. “Kyoudai…?”

“Sakura-chan!”

Asahina released her hold on Kuwata, who flailed as he slid down the doors and toppled to the tiled ground with a shout, and charged. She fell over her own feet several times as she rushed towards the other—though, _somehow_ , was able to keep herself from crashing to the floor—but seemed too focused to notice her own clumsiness. With one final joyous shout and stumble, Asahina launched herself into Oogami’s chest and threw her arms around her neck. Oogami, in what appeared to be a mixture of surprise and slight confusion, had no time to brace herself and the two tumbled to the floor together.

 _It’s starting to feel like people falling over and then being picked up has become a trend or something_ , Maizono mused with a touch of amusement. Both she and Yamada stepped backwards to give the two on the ground more space.

Oogami wrapped her thick arms around the smaller girl as she sobbed loudly into her chest and clutched at her uniform’s blouse. Her expression drifted into that of a fond smile and her pale eyes glowed with something almost too affectionate for words, an expression Maizono had never seen on her usually crass face.

“Y-You’re _here_ , Sakura-chan, you’re…you’re _here_ an-and _alive_ and _real_! You’re here, and—and I’m never letting you go again!” Asahina began to cry harder. “I’m going to...to...to h-hug you _forever_ , and never let go so—so you can’t—” Her voice was wet with tears. “That’ll _never_ happen again. I won’t _let it_! S—…Sakura-chan! I missed you! I missed you so much! Please, _please_ te-tell me you’re real. I—I _can’t_ —”

With little effort on her part, Oogami sat up cross-legged and repositioned Asahina to her lap instead of sprawled across her chest.

She hushed her, one hand petting her hair and the other wiping tears off her cheeks with her thumb. Asahina seemed to calm slightly at the touch, her sobs melting into soft hiccups and a small smile as she looked up at the other.

“I am here.” Oogami affirmed. For the first time that day, her smile was full and genuine. “And I do not intend to leave you like that again, Asahina. Perhaps we may go to the kitchen once this has finished, find some donuts and tea to enjoy like we did before? It would most assuredly make me feel better.” Asahina’s smile lost it’s traces of sadness; her face was still wet and she was still slumped against Sakura in near exhaustion, but she was happy nonetheless.

At that final statement laughter bubbled up between the two girls, the rumble of a storm cloud and the babble of a stream. Their joy was intoxicating, and Maizono felt like laughing with them.

It wasn’t until then that she noticed Oowada’s presence had left her side. He’d wandered a few steps forward, seemingly blind and deaf to Asahina and Oogami’s happy display. Instead he was focused intently on Ishimaru, who too had moved closer. The pair seemed trapped in an odd sort of staring contest, caught in each other’s eyes.

Entranced, she watched as Oowada walked forward, then jogged forward, then sprinted forward; his face practically broke in two, his beaming smile was so huge. Ishimaru adversely appeared to be frozen, a whirlwind of emotions across his face as he started to cry, slow tears that grew into outright sobs.

Oowada hefted Ishimaru into the air with a howl of laughter and spun him wildly despite Ishimaru’s automatic choked response to be set back down, a few tears pricking in his own eyes. Ishimaru began to laugh and struggle, fingers gripping his shoulders with the clear indication that he was afraid he would be dropped but okay with the risk. Once Oowada seemed satisfied, he set Ishimaru down once again and held him an arm’s length away to look at him.

“The hell did they do to you, Kiyo?” Oowada ran his fingers through the white strands of hair, blinking to ease the tears from his eyes, as if embarrassed by them. "Are you okay?"

Ishimaru swatted his hands away, impatient and excited. " _Of course_ I am okay! And what does it even matter anyway?" His expression showed nothing but joy, even as he rubbed at his swollen red eyes to clear them. "You are alive and in one piece! I do not understand how or why, but I do not care. Mondo, you have returned!"

Oowada laughed again, though it seemed obvious he wouldn’t forget the issue. "Yeah. I guess I am."

The two emotional reunions created an odd scene in the hallway, if Maizono was being honest. She had seen something close brewing between Oogami and Asahina— _of course_ she had seen it, she wasn’t blind; the two had been all but inseparable from their first minute together—but the sudden friendship (relationship?) between Ishimaru and Oowada was throwing her for a loop. They’d yet to exchange more than a few words in her presence, and most of those had been to criticize each other.

Still, it was nice to see all four classmates so happy — to see be reminded what happiness looked like. Maizono couldn't stop her smile any longer and hid it behind her hand.

She almost wished that she had a close friend herself, someone to hold her tight and laugh with her as they forgot the hell that surrounded them. She wanted to stop feeling so _alone_ , so _confused_. Also to stop freaking out over everything; she felt like a pot that had boiled over one too many times. Tired and overworked.

A hand tapped on her shoulder, quick yet indecisive, and Maizono turned to see Naegi hovering beside her. Her grin slipped off her face.

Naegi smiled at her, awkward but earnest. "Hi, Maizono-san."

Fukawa cackled and skipped away, presumably closer to where Togami was still looming, and threw Maizono a wink. Yamada scuttled into the group with only a single glance back over his shoulder.

Naegi? Naegi. He was talking to her?

Oh God. Makoto Naegi was _alive_ and _talking to her_? What the hell did he think he was _doing_? He should hate her — no, _did_ hate her! Maizono had tricked him and lied to him, used Naegi to the point that she tried to pin an _unsuccessful murder_ on him! _He was almost killed_. It didn’t really matter whether she had died or Kuwata had died, because either way it was _all her fault_ and Maizono didn’t deserve to—to _talk_ to him after that night, let alone have him talk to her and smile fake smiles to spare her the _damn_ hatred she deserved.

"It's sweet isn't it?" Naegi motioned towards the two couples, his smile faltering when she avoided eye contact. "The...uhm... The reunions?" He leaned closer. "...Maizono-san?"

The happy sounds—and, admittedly, tears—of the other four and the rest of the group's commotion faded out as Maizono swallowed, trying her hardest to keep her eyes trained on the floor. It felt respectful. Especially considering how Naegi was wasting his time, trying to talk to someone like her.

A familiar pressure pushed against the back of her eyes, but she steeled her shoulders and forced the tears to keep still. She hadn’t cried yet, not through all of her stupid panic attacks and Hagakure’s mention of Naegi’s execution. She’s been strong on that front. And. All the tears that had been shed in this room thus far were happy, between close friends happy to see each other again. Maizono wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —ruin that.

She wouldn't disgust him with her pathetic guilt. She wouldn’t ruin the mood.

Naegi placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch too gentle to aimed at someone so _horrible_ and _undeserving_. Maizono was only just able to stop herself from jolting at the sensation. “Maizono-san? Will you at least look at me? Please?” He sounded so wounded—so _betrayed_ and _almost dead because of **her**_ —that her heart, not her _stupid_ _stomach with the stupid knife and stupid plan_ for once, hurt. She drew a breath and looked back up at him.

And instantly regretted it.

“Please.” She whispered, already past wagering and moving towards begging. There was her damned  _pretty_ voice, all watery and pathetic. “Please, just _stop_.”

At that it was Naegi who jerked away, an entire step back from her. Her chest ached that much harder. “What are you talking about? Did I...? Maizono-san, are you alright? You... You’re crying!”

Huh, she was, wasn’t she? She’d ended up disgusting Naegi even more than she already had. Wonderful. When would Maizono stop being such a bad person to him all the time?

“I’m not crying.” Maizono lied, because, if _anything_ , she could probably do that right. “I just want you to stop pretending you still care about me after I—I did that to you. _Tricked_ you.” She pressed her hands to her eyes and breathed, throat feeling too thick to do much else. “I can’t stand it.”

He went silent and Maizono couldn’t find the strength in her to remove her fingers and look at him. She struggled enough just holding herself together, all the seams and stitches and little glass shards that felt like they would burst from pressure any second, and wished like the damn coward she was that the ground would just swallow her up. Swallow her up before Naegi finally broke, finally opened up and told her what he really thought, how he really felt. Maizono was positive that she wouldn’t be able to take it; to hear how venomous his sincere and honest voice could get when someone who betrayed him came crawling back, to see the disgust and disappointment and anger fill his hopeful, wide eyes and take aim at her. She couldn’t _handle_ it.

For one suspended moment, a single moment of limbo, his silence kept her in one piece. Together.

“It was really hard after you died.” Naegi finally commented, his voice all too steady, and Maizono braced herself. “I mean...I think after having someone there helping you all the time, you get a little lost when they leave. The others liked to ask me for help with their problems and ideas all the time, but you were the only one that ever offered to help me too. It was one of the reasons I liked being your friend so much. You were always willing to be there for me, and it made it easier to do the same.”

Any air that had been left rattling in her lungs, feeling just as trapped and desperate as she did, left her at his words like a punch to the gut..

She peeled her hands away—palms and fingers soaked, just like her cheeks—to see him smile. The smile of someone who had just found a long lost friend after years of searching. Awkward but earnest.

“I guess you could say I missed having my Super High School Level Assistant with me.” He finished, eyes crinkling at the edges and sparkling. “You know, um, if you still want the job.” Naegi tacked on a bit nervously, rubbing the back of his neck and shuffling in place.

Awkward but earnest...and _wonderful_. Her heart clenched. Dammit.

“I tried to frame you for murder.” She whispered, because it hurt to say out loud but Naegi _had_ to remember that. It made the truth more solid, less avoidable, something that she could grasp and feel and remember to anchor her back to the ground while she wanted nothing but to float up, up and away, tears of joy and sorrow and everything else that might be waiting there. “I’m—I’m a _liar_ , and, and I tried to murder someone, _Naegi-kun_ , I’m awful person who _used you—_ ”

Naegi didn’t even falter. “That wasn’t the entire time, right? Even before we knew about Monokuma wanting everyone to kill each other you were nice to me, and went out of your way to befriend me. Besides...after everything else that’s happened here, I know I can forgive you. It hurt at the time, that you - well, that did what you did, but it didn’t make me miss you any less while you were de—” He cut himself off abruptly, shaking his head. “Gone. I—I meant, while you were _gone_. I missed you, Maizono-san. It never got easier without you, no matter how much time had passed.”

She needed to _stop him_ , stop those sweet words and honest answers because Maizono was starting to realize that his scorn and hate would be _better_ , she could _accept_ that. It made sense.

But _this_? This had to be some lie, a _big fat lie_ to make it all hurt _worse_ when he dropped the act and—and—and _hated her like he should_.

But then, Naegi was hugging her. Maizono was trapped in a warm, heart-filled embrace and she couldn’t escape or keep her seams and stitches and bits of glass together anymore. Her mask—precious and porcelain, an idol’s Number One asset in that _big scary world_ that was just waiting to _gobble_ her up—had been cracking since it started, fractures like spiderwebs streaking across its surface with each genuine word and expression Naegi effortlessly shot at her, as if by some stupid chance it was _her_ that he was the happiest to see, and with those final words it shattered. Beyond repair, her biggest advantage was powder at her feet, and she was left bare and open.

Maizono collapsed onto her knees in front of him like she was nothing more than that naïve child who’d fallen for Monokuma’s mirror and smoke again; she cried into his waist and clutched his legs, sobbed and blabbered out the apologies she’d wanted to tell him from the moment Kuwata opened the door.

If he could do that, if Makoto Naegi could forgive her so _stupidly easily_ , then maybe, just _maybe_ , there would be a day in the future she would truly feel worthy of being called his friend.

“I don’t hate you, Maizono-san. And I don’t want to hear you keep saying that.” Naegi said almost suddenly, his voice surprised. It was probably in response to something she was spouting helplessly like a broken faucet, she realized. There was a moment of hesitation, before Naegi grabbed Maizono under her arms and, after a few moments of struggling, helped pull her to her feet. “You... You don’t need to be on the floor like that either.” He muttered as she blinked, both at him and to clear her eyes, and she struggled to contain her heaving gasps.

A warm bubble of happiness—or maybe relief, or maybe just simplistic and absolute joy—found it’s way into her chest, and she didn’t immediately realize that she had started to laugh again until she heard him laughing too. Maizono wiped her eyes.

Lies were easy; Maizono could do it until her face turned blue and her voice died out, and she could make a quick smile with the best of them, no matter the situation. She’d made herself a career out of it. But Naegi? No, he wasn’t a liar like her. He was too open-hearted for his own good with a level of pure positivity she could do nothing but admire and envy, but he wouldn’t be able to lie if his life depended on it.

Naegi wasn’t a liar, he was awkward and earnest and wonderful, and he truly had forgiven her.

“Naegi-kun. There you are.”

Maizono blinked at the sudden address, looking over to see Kirigiri marching towards them both with a certain level of purpose in her walk and eyes that _burned_ with determination. She had another girl by the wrist, with a grip that looked a little too harsh by Maizono’s standards, though she didn’t show any signs of discomfort in her face as Kirigiri pulled her behind her.

The mysterious girl was decently pretty, if a tad plain in her attributes and accessories; a black pixie cut that looked as it had been freshly trimmed, lighter blue eyes that had a narrowed slant to them, a smattering of freckles across her face. The simple brown jacket with Hope’s Peak crest and matching skirt—a possible uniform for the school, Maizono supposed—she wore didn’t bring out her features very well either. The odd circular scars puckered onto the front of both thighs that revealed themselves with each innocent movement of her skirt began to stand out from the rest of her dull appearance after Maizono noticed them, almost ridiculously.

Even with the girl’s lost expression, one that most likely could have rivaled Maizono’s own after she awoke in the library, she doubted the girl appreciated Kirigiri treating her like some much abused stuffed animal.

“Ah, Kirigiri-san?” Naegi responded, obviously surprised.

Maizono found herself equally surprised with the tone of familiarity Naegi had said her name. When had they become so close — become _friends_ even? Was it after she died? Well. Huh.

Kirigiri came to an abrupt stop in front of them, the other girl still managing a graceful enough stop despite the absolute lack of warning. It was pretty impressive in Maizono’s opinion for what appeared to be such a confused and timid girl. “I found the student you murdered.”

Her tone was so flat, so _uninterested_ in the subject, that Maizono almost didn’t catch the utter importance of what she said. The rest of the room’s occupants, however, didn’t share the same problem, and saw fit to simultaneously began to freak out and explode into a commotion at the statement.

“How in the hell could he kill this dame?” Oowada questioned, incredulous. His brow lowered. “I mean, _look_ at ‘im. He couldn’t manage that.”

“Wait, wait, wait! _You’re her_?” Fukawa all but shrilled, before her gobstruck expression dissolved into relentless snickering. “This is _precious_! Though, it’s kinda a drag that you look so normal, y’know? Us added cast characters have to have our personal trademarks to help us stand out and blend in with the originals! You don’t even have a hooked nose or knee warts or something! _Boo-hoo_!” She stuck out her tongue, arms crossed.

“But you exploded!” Asahina blurted with wide eyes, pulling on Sakura’s arm as she pointed at her and stopping the action when the other put a hand on the top of her head again. She turned her gaze to Kirigiri. “Hey, but uh, where exactly did you find her? Did she wake up with you?”

“Um, are you sure Kirigiri-san?” Fujisaki hesitantly inquired. “I’m sorry to doubt you, but...I mean, Naegi-kun is…”

“A bit of a shrimp?” Kuwata chimed in.

Fukawa tilted her head. “ _Sensitive_ on the inside?” She pretended to swoon.

Fujisaki blinked at the both of them. “U-Um...”

“Excuse my disbelief,” Oogami said. “But even with Hagakure’s previous mention of an execution, I find the idea that Naegi was both _able_ to murder her and...” She took a deep breath as her face became sollom. Asahina stiffened slightly, her grip tightening. “ _Motivated_ to do so, very unlikely.”

“No, but Sakura-chan, she _exploded_! When Syo took off her weird wrestler’s mask, she blew up from the Monokuma bomb and you can’t see any of it on her!”

Hagakure looked at Asahina. “That was after the stabbing with the arrows and knife thing, wasn’t it? It was evidence cover-up!” He declared. Then he paused and glanced back over at the mystery girl. “But, yeah, you’re right. She’s got pretty clear skin. No burns what-so-ever.”

“Would either of you like to try and explain what you mean by _explosion_?” Ishimaru asked, his face twisted in uncertainty. “As well as Naegi-kun being responsible?”

“Oh _please_ , there’s no way a guy that little could have the balls to do that! Don’t listen to any of them, Kiyo. They’re sounding pretty damn delusional if you ask me.”

Asahina scowled at him. “I was _there_! There’s nothing delusional about that!”

As if the confused conversations between the group were nothing more than useless prattle to him, Togami charged forward from the back of the group—where he had been seemingly strategically moving himself around to keep an optimum distance from Fukawa without actually _leaving_ the group—to Kirigiri and her silent captive, his gaze nothing short of intense. The mysterious girl fidgeted in place as his eyes bored into her, holding onto her left elbow with her right hand while she shuffled almost _behind_ Kirigiri.

It was that position that put her tattoo—an eight point star holding the head of a snarling wolf, probably something incredibly symbolic—in clear sight, and while some noticed the detail almost instantly, Maizono could see nothing but Naegi’s face.

Pale as death with eyes wide and haunted as they flickered between Kirigiri and the mysterious girl, he looked like a ghost of his usual self. Naegi’s hands shook lightly, twitching sharply as if in response to slow, evenly-spaced, distant echo. He hadn’t slouched in place or lowered his head down, but he looked suddenly much smaller than he had just moments earlier. It was like Naegi had been reminded of something awful, a bad memory that was better kept in dark corners or under stairs.

A memory that made him _afraid_.

Bold without reason, Maizono stepped forward. “What are you trying to imply with that, Kirigiri-san?” She shot in return. Maizono sent back a meaningful look to Naegi and was dismayed to see his expression hadn't changed; she turned to the other girl and her eyes were met without hesitation.

The glare wasn’t intentional, of course, but the fact that her cool expression hadn’t so much as shifted just rubbed Maizono the wrong way. Couldn’t she see what she’d said was affecting him? That he was _scared_? _Because of her_? What kind of 'friend' was she?

The distant wish that Maizono had been just _three inches_ taller or perhaps taken to wearing shoes with a decent heel on them so that she could properly stare the other down with the advantage of height on her side, flashed through her mind.

“Naegi-kun is a good person, _through_ and _through_. He couldn’t hurt someone even if he wanted to!” Maizono continued, unaware her voice had started to rise. “He’s kind and cares about how other’s feel even if they don’t care about him! Even—Even if they’ve done something terrible to him! How could a person like that ever have it in them to kill another human being, Kirigiri-san? He would never do something like that! _Never!”_

Kirigiri eyed her slowly, watching with a careful look of attention as Maizono wound down and flushed, realizing just what she’d said and just how loud it had been. After a couple beats of silence, Kirigiri used her grip on the mystery girl’s wrist to tug her out from behind her pull her up beside her. Then she let go completely.

“I wasn’t finished.” Kirigiri said. A look that clearly informed the group of her impatience with them moved across the room from face to face, before it settled longest on Maizono. She almost shrunk back at the withering stare. “As I was saying earlier, Naegi-kun, I found the student you murdered _according to Monokuma_. However, just as I had suspected, she has explained to me that this is not true.”

Mystery girl’s attention was aimed solely towards the floor, her cheeks a touch pink.

Kirigiri nodded towards her, seemingly uncaring of her shyness. “This is Mukuro Ikusaba, the hidden sixteenth student of Hope’s Peak Academy’s 78th class.”

Ikusaba shuffled in place, eyes tracing tile patterns almost desperately. It was understandable, what with how most people had taken to ogling her like some kind of rare museum exhibit. Then again, Maizono knew she was in no place to judge her classmates for their curious looks; she was staring too, after all.

“....The sixteenth student...” Naegi seemed to have recovered for the most part, the color returning to his face as he politely did his best not to _completely_ stare. “You really do exist?” It came out as more so a question.

“I mean, if you murdered her than I would hope she existed.” Kuwata piped up.

It seemed as if the entire room jolted, tension effectively shattered. All eyes moved from Ikusaba, towards Kuwata's placement on the floor. He was still propped awkwardly against the cafeteria doors where he’d fell, legs bent under him at clearly uncomfortable angles.

“And, y'know, if it’s not a _bother_ to anyone," He continued. "Could a guy get a little help over here? I’ve been dumped before, sure, but that was just ridiculous there Asahina. Is Oogami really that much prettier than me?”

Asahina’s hands flew to her mouth. “I am _so sorry_!” She gasped, scrambling off of Oogami’s lap and slipping several times in the process. “I totally didn’t mean to do that to you, Kuwata! Jeez. Look, I’m _really_ sorry! Here, lemme just,” Asahina grabbed at his arms with panicked hands and pulled, as if she could force him back to his feet with just that alone. 

“Hey! Owww, watch the–” Kuwata winced and yelped as she continued to tug recklessly. “ _Watch_ the bruises! Ah, seriously _that hurts_! Oo _oww_ w _w_!”

Asahina dropped his arm, cringing. “Sorry. Hey, let’s try, uh, this?”

“Anyway.” Kirigiri continued, pointedly ignoring the minor commotion behind them as both Oogami and Ishimaru moved to offer their assistance in arranging the pair again. “I believe we’ve all endured enough confusion for a one day, and Monokuma claimed he would reveal himself once we’d all gathered together again.” She looked towards the closest security camera. “I know you can see us, _hear us_ , Monokuma. So, are you going to upkeep your promise of an explanation as to why all of the dead students, including myself, are alive again. Or have you planned to drag out our confusion for the sake of your own enjoyment?”

Maizono baulked.

She had died? _What_? How had _Kirigiri_ of all people been killed?! Had they all just went and _died_? _How_?

What had become to be a familiar sense of panic hit Maizono as the words rolled about in her mind, because no one had mentioned anyone other than herself, Naegi, Oogami, Fukawa and Ikusaba _dying_ , even though Kuwata looked as if he’d been to _hell and back_ and Fukawa and Togami had their _new_ scars and _Asahina’s_ leg. It all fit, like a little puzzle she’d been missing pieces of but found hidden under the table. It _fit_.

Why have such heartfelt reunions if you’d never been separated in the first place, if you hadn’t lost the other person you cared so much for some point along the way?

Maizono wanted answers, solid and truthful and no more of everyone’s ‘mention the subject in _riddles_ ’ habit. She wanted to march right up to Monokuma’s stupid door and demand to be told what the _hell_ happened after she died, or maybe just shake them out of Kirigiri while she was right there in front of her, apparently chock full of information. She _wanted answers_.

Ishimaru shook his head. “Actually, we are still missing someone, Kirigiri-kun.” He informed them.

Naegi frowned, scanning the group to get a headcount. “We have fourteen people.” He said. “That’s everyone, isn’t it? No wait, we _are_ one short; but who is it?” A pause, then a curious turning of heads as everyone tried to figure it out for themselves.

From the back of the group, Yamada made of sound, a _squeak_ almost.

“I must say, I’m incredibly insulted you all have already forgotten about me.” A prim voice intoned, as if she had been _waiting_ for her cue. The prompt click of heels against the tile echoed as the Queen of Liars made her dramatic entrance through the first floor gate. “And here I’d thought I’d made quite the impression,” Celestia went on, her mocking and superior tone almost _bitter_. “After all, I _am_ responsible for the murders of two of our number — neither of whom died too, well, _peacefully_.”

Celestia finished her absolute bone-chilling statement with an upward tilt of her lips and a casual sweep of her dark ruby eyes over her captivated audience, as if she’d amused herself with her own words.

“Holy fuck.” Oowada muttered, probably unconsciously if his slack-jawed expression was anything to go by, and Asahina made a similar, less explicate sound of horror.

“Celes, I—I…” Yamada looked stricken as he looked up and down Celestia’s form, at the condition she was in. “Wha-What...” He trembled. “Who did this t-to you?”

Her slight smirk faded into an expression of boredom. “It was Monokuma, of course. _You_ of all people should understand what I did to have this happen.” Celestia responded, unbothered by both her own words and Yamada’s state, as his trembling instantly increased.

Celestia’s hands—Celestia’s ugly, _ugly_ hands, seared and dried and cracked such a dark red and ghost white with the same streaked burns that pulled across each exposed inch of her flesh, from her delicate face to her small wrists to her thin thighs, some places so damaged they were flecked with a terrible _black_ —were folded politely over her stomach, as a proper lady would were her hands to be free.

Even with her wide frilled skirt and layered jacket, high stockings and singed bonnet and bows; even with her perfectly poised, if a bit stiff, posture and composure; even with her sharp eyes, still as intimidating and off-putting as Maizono had remembered them to be—

Celestia was small; undoubtedly, undeniably, _small_.

It wasn’t her aura though, _no_ , it was her physical person. The ridiculous drills she had worn were gone, disappeared from her outfit and leaving her with nothing but her short, fringed bob. It left Celestia seemingly incomplete, her image tarnished.

The full body burns, comparable only to Kuwata’s bruises, didn’t help either.

Maizono couldn’t help but remember the silk-dressed doll her Father had gotten her for one of her earlier birthdays, which had undergone an unfortunate experience with the fireplace. Her plastic skin had dripped and charred in an ugly fashion and her large pink headband had burned away before Maizono’s sitter was able to fish her from the fire. She’d been utterly scarred over her entire plastic body and lost one of her most unique features, much like Celestia had.

The effect of her change was similar to Kuwata’s in the nauseating sense that something _terrible_ had to have happened to them to disfigure them so _badly_ , but it might just have been the loss of her drills that made her different as well. Kuwata was still loud and filled with snark. Celestia hadn’t changed personality wise herself, but the smaller statue made her look almost...fragile, maybe vulnerable. Weaker. Never mind the fact that she could walk without assistance while Kuwata couldn’t. Still — it made her scars feel more drastic and dangerous, something that held more shock value to them.

Fujisaki was close to tears. “What did he do to you?” She whimpered.

“It was assuredly nothing I hadn’t asked for in the first place.” Celestia answered breezily, an added flippant wave of her hand emphasizing just how little she cared. “There’s no reason for any of you to be worried about it though.”

She seemed to have taken her own altered appearance _too_ well, especially for someone who displayed the vain qualities that she did. Maizono couldn’t quite bring herself do the same, at least not so _quickly_ , and it wasn’t even _her body_.

“Who would ever ask for—” Maizono couldn’t get the words out right. Her gestured towards the other loosely. “For _that_?” It was unimaginable what Celestia was suggesting.

Celestia sighed, overdramatic and emphasized. “I did say it was nothing for any of you to be concerned about.” She reminded, tapping her ring-clad finger to her lips and looking to the side in withheld exasperation. “But since all of you still don’t wish to believe me and because it matter so _very_ much, then just ask him yourselves. Monokuma insisted upon following me after I found him lurking by the elevator doors, complaining about my lack of urgency to arrive with you rest of you. I can’t say I cared to be here, so I suppose it can be understood.”

It was at that he chose to peek out from behind her legs—though, it was a mystery how he was able to hide his entire body behind her thin outline—and greet the faces of fourteen of his students, all of whose expressions immediately morphed into various shades and degrees of anger, fear, anxiety and hatred. Monokuma seemed to determine that it was safe for him to step out from behind his meager protection, despite how it was most assuredly _not_ , and gave the group a jolly wave.

It was only Ishimaru who addressed him, with a stiff and restrained greeting of “Monokuma,” that was more habit than respect, and an annoyed twitch in the corner of his mouth.

Monokuma was ecstatic anyway. “I’m so happy to see all my students again! It’s been so _quiet_ here without all you bastards running around, being all nosy in my business and trying to be friends with each other. Oh yeah, and _then_ brutally murdering each other! _Upupup_!” Monokuma giggled into his paws, shaking his head. “It’s just so good to see everyone’s smiling faces all patched together again!” He gushed, wiggling back and forth almost comically.

Nobody had a smile on their face.

While most attention had bounced to Monokuma, Celestia took the moment to immerse herself into the group and further away from the subject of their anger. She placed herself by Fukawa, closer towards the front but still deep enough to blend in. An admittedly smart move to her credit.

Monokuma stopped his little ridiculous dance abruptly, as if he’d just noticed that no one was, in fact, happy to see him. He visibly drooped at the realization. “Everyone’s just being mean to me now! I go out of my way to make this little shindig happen and no one wants to see this out to the end? No way! You kids’ll follow through until I say so!” He waved a paw at them, most likely as the equivalent to a human fist, before he sent Ikusaba a jealous look. “This isn’t fair! Mama Monokuma is the nice one, the _pretty one_ , but everybody gets all interested when they meet _Muku_ again?! This isn’t fair, not for a bear who’s sweet like honey the way I am! I might as well _be_ the honey!”

“‘Again’?” Togami repeated, his eyes narrowed and nose upturned at the animatronic. “I’ve never seen this dolt before we discovered her body. Explain yourself.” He demanded, none too nicely.

Fukawa nodded with a close-eyed smirk, crossing her arms. “I’ve gotta agree with Byakuya-sama on this one, Yogi. That lame-o over there was a sudden plot point, _definitely not_ a reoccurring theme!” At the very sound of her voice, never mind that her words were backing his up, Togami’s face twisted into a look of disgust. Still, he kept his eyes trained on his interrogation suspect nevertheless.

“I—I don’t know her either.” Fujisaki quietly supplied.

Ikusaba opened her mouth, as if she planned to give them some sort of explanation. Then, after a short glance towards Kirigiri beside her, she closed it with a helpless shrug and guilty look at the floor.

“Eh?! Did I really say that?” Monokuma scratched at his head. “Whoops! I guess I just can’t keep secrets! Why don’t we make a pop quiz out of this one? You bastards haven’t used any of that Super High School Level 'Brain Power' of yours this semester anyway.” He pointed at the group. “So! Who wants to be wrong first? Ishi- _Whatever-the-Second-Half-of-Your-Name-Is-Now_ , isn’t all this thinking stuff your kinda thing?”

Ishimaru blinked at him, startled by the question and odd choice of address. “Excuse me?”

“No, I’ve got this! I know!” Hagakure shouted, much to almost everyone’s complete surprise. Both of his hands were extended up into the air, waved back and forth desperately, as if he were a kindergartner anxious to be called on by their teacher. Once Hagakure realized he had the group’s attention, he lowered his arms and waggled a finger at their Headmaster, surprisingly sassy. “You can’t trick me with all that razzle dazzle, Monokuma! I know your game now!” He looked at his classmates excitedly. “The reason we all know Ikusaba-chi is because she was pretending to be you!”

The room fell totally silent — Monokuma included. Hagakure’s face became smug at that, nodding knowingly to himself, but when it was considered how absolutely no one had any idea what he was talking about, Maizono was inclined to believe that Hagakure _himself_ didn’t even know what he had meant.

Togami exhaled heavily through his nose. “Ikusaba was pretending to be Monokuma.” He drawled.

Hagakure paused. “What? Wait, wait; that’s not that I meant!” He groaned, clearly catching whatever mistake is was he’d just made, and rubbed his forehead irritably. “That’s not it at all. Look, what I meant to say was, was, uhm—” Hagakure threw his head back and grumbled again. “ _Ugh_. It’s so hard _knowing_ all these things when no one else does. Kirigiri-chi, how do you do it all the time? Okay, wait, just lemme try it again. So, look, Ikusaba-chi was a traitor, like, the _big one_ , but she was Enoshima-chi’s sister too!”

“Enoshima-san’s sister?” Maizono parroted, once again lost in the flow of conversation. And she’d just gotten decently caught up too! At the very least, she had been  _sort of_ understanding what everyone was talking about. Or maybe she’d just been as equally confused as the rest?

Asahina’s brow furrowed. “They don’t even _look_ similar. Like, genetically.”

Naegi sighed. “You can’t see genetics, Asahina-san.” He looked back at Ikusaba, at her black hair. “Though I do kinda agree with what you’re saying.”

“Speaking of Enoshima, she has yet to arrive, but you have still appeared to us Monokuma.” Oogami announced, reminding the group that they had forgotten yet another classmate. “I thought that was what you said you _wouldn’t_ do and yet you have, without any indications of her whereabouts or lack of attendance.”

Beside Maizono, Naegi huffed in self-exasperation and muttered to himself something of his own forgetful stupidity at the expense of another friend; it almost pulled a faint smile on to her lips, despite the understandably important situation at hand.

“That’s because Ikusaba-chi was executed for disobeying the headmaster!” Hagakure interjected, his arms waving back and forth once again.

“Wait,” Kuwata said. “I thought Naegi killed her.”

“Well, he _did_ , until Kirigiri-chan just came in and told us he didn’t.” Asahina tried to explain, before she stopped, tilting her head to the side. “Wait. Does that mean he beat a dead body with some taped-up arrows just because? And what about the knife and the chicken blood?”

Kuwata, his head cocked back at too many awkward angles to look at Asahina while she still supported him, raised an eyebrow. “What are you even talking about?”

“Back after Maizono-chi’s murder, when we were all in the gym together, it was Ikusaba-chi was Monokuma executed! Y’know, the one with the spears and stuff? They switched and Ikusaba-chi got executed instead of Enoshima-chi, and _that’s_ why she’s not here! Monokuma’s been—”

“ _Hagakure-kun_. Just shut up and allow him to talk; you’ve done nothing but cause a commotion and confuse the rest of us with things you can’t say right, so stop talking already.” Kirigiri grit out in a single breath, her face still carefully controlled to hide her annoyance but her tone and eyes betraying too much. Hagakure went still, excited voice dying off as his energy-filled form slumping slightly. His face seemed to fight to keep the hurt expression off.

Behind her hand and in a stage-whisper that was purposely left loud enough for the entire group to hear, Fukawa said to Celestia, “Harsh.”

Kirigiri sighed, then continued in a voice somewhat gentler. “I don’t want you to answer my questions, not when your answers aren’t clear enough for everyone to understand. I want Monokuma to explain for himself why he’s done what he has.” Kirigiri clarified, words careful and deliberate.

Hagakure nodded. Though he still looked dejected, he seemed to understand.

And then Kirigiri was all business again, strutted to the head of the group with crossed arms and an unamused expression, standing tall and unshakable before the root of the entire problem. Maizono marveled at how she kept her gaze steady and determined as she stared him down, positive she wouldn’t be able to do the same.

“So out with it,” Kirigiri pressed. “How have you brought us back, even those you’ve executed of your own choice? And what is your message you’ve deemed important enough to demand a full live audience to share, when you have access to a school-wide intercom system? It has to be something important, something we’ve been asking you since day one.”

Monokuma cocked his head, a paw behind one ear. “Whaaaaat’s that? Don’t you wanna know where your precious friend went?” He leaned forward. “I thought you kiddies followed those cute little HSM rules. ‘All In This Together’ and ‘Bop to the Top’, that kinda thing. Aren’t you even a _little_ curious? A _teeny_ bit?”

Kirigiri’s eyes only narrowed.

“Wait. Y-You mean...” Naegi muttered, one hand pressed against his cheek. In contrast to the lavender-haired girl, his eyes were impossibly wide.

Maizono turned towards him, reaching out to touch his shoulder but aborting the motion last moment. “Naegi-kun, are you okay?” She whispered, startled by his once again pale face and dilated pupils. “Na-Naegi-kun?”

In response, Monokuma threw back his head and patted at his his white stomach in a mock-jolly fashion. He laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed. “What a _silly_ bear am I? Expecting anything less from you would be like expecting a salamon to fly! _Ridiculous_! Upupuppup! Even the squirt figured it out, how cute! I guess that's why I hate him so much!”

“We didn’t ask for a comedy routine.” Togami hissed. “We want our _answers_.”

Celestia made a face of disinterest. “Yes. Your distasteful humor is quite tiring to listen to for extended period. It would be nice if you could continue on to the important sections of the conversation.”

“Youth are so impatient these days!” The bear huffed, his face turned red. “But _fine_ , we can skip over my next preplanned lines of banter and dialogue if you’re so bored! Let’s start with the real important stuff, shall we? It may be lame, overused, and at this point just plain _predictable_ , but I still think it’s an oldie and a goodie!” Monokuma laughed, head thrown back again. “Evil Twins are a fun cliché, right?”

Monokuma bounced back a few steps and threw his arms out wide. Without any sort of warning or indication, he exploded into a plume of smoke and the lights shut off, leaving the group both choking on the taste and enveloped in black. A few let out screams of surprise, others in fear. Maizono latched onto Naegi’s hand without hesitation, glad to feel him give a faint squeeze back.

“Let’s meet our lovely Mastermind! The _bitch_ that started all this! _Right,_ Hagaichi? _Upupup.”_

Slowly—as the taunting laughter echoed and faded, leaving them with their panicked and confused whispers and their desperate attempts to find one another in the dark—the single monitor mounted on the wall flickered to life. All eyes found themselves drawn, unquestioningly seeking out any source of light they could find. Rolls and bursts of daunting gray static danced across the monitor for a moment, before the picture finally appeared and stabilized itself on the screen.

A face, surrounded by a sea of monitors and blue lights, smiled at them.

“I don’t understand,” Maizono breathed, overwhelmed and overpowered as fourteen others exploded into a mess of gasps and shouts of disbelief, curses and proclamations of revenge and anger. Her stomach hurt. “ _I don’t understand_.”

Junko Enoshima, her face a halo of white light against the inky black that consumed them, smiled at them; her hands pressed together tightly in front of her lower face, as if she had the _audacity_ to pray, and a too-bright shine in her eyes glittering down at them. Her expression turned to something filled with affection, something _despicable_.

“Shh, _shh_ , there’s no reason to panic! _Shhhhh_. You’ve been dead for a while now, but Mama Junko fixed you all right up with a few stitches and a bunch of love! So now that our big happy family is back together, we can start our little game all over again! Eheheheh _ehe_. Don’t panic, _shh_ , we’re going to have so much despair together again. So much fun! Doesn’t it sound just _amazing_?”

She didn’t understand.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out, most chapters will follow this sort of format, with larger blocks of texts and less jumping from one event to another. More clarity in what's happening; 
> 
> This story's what I've heard called a 'New Game Plus', so everyone both remembers and is effected by the events of the first Round. Celestia's extensive scars are a pretty good example of this. 
> 
> Also, if you didn't notice, some characters are going to be given slight personality face-lifts by Sierra and I, not only because what they've experienced, but because some of them were pretty badly written at times. They're still the same characters, though, so don't become too dismayed by any potential changes.
> 
> Feel free to share any criticism or theories you might have as the story goes along. We want to see what you guys can come up with, honestly. Also, happy July 4th.  
> —Karisa
> 
> ((POSTED ON : 7/4/2015))


	3. Part B : This is Zombieland and We're the Attractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Even now." It was just a whisper, and if Naegi hadn't been but a few meager inches away and focused on her face, he would have missed it entirely. "Even after that, you still want to help me. You still trust me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter we meet two more of our POVs, Yasuhiro Hagakure and Makoto Naegi! We've made an effort to ensure that each of our characters, especially our narrators, have different voice and speech patterns from all the other characters in ways align most accurately with both how they speak in the game/anime and how we imagine they would talk given their personalities and backgrounds. Now please enjoy the update!  
> ~ Sierra

**DAY 1 — ROUND 2**

 

 

 

 

Were it any other day, Hagakure would be _pretty darn impressed_ with the theatrics of the whole reveal.

As a seasoned fortune teller himself, he knew the tricks of the trade like the literal back of his hand. A little hologram here, a little strobe light there, all simple techniques tossed together to spice any performance up and keep it interesting for the customer. Really, Enoshima’s work was pretty clean-cut and basic, but he could admit that it worked well enough. A solid Grade B+ in his professional opinion — a bit overdramatic, yeah, but the dimmed lights and bright screen worked just like they always did during his appointments, drawing in the eyes and refusing to let go for the sake of tense atmosphere, and her folded hands made her look  _way_ too innocent and matronly than any evil genius/evil mastermind had any right to be. Personally, a fog machine really would’ve finished everything off and keep up the creepy atmosphere Monokuma (or Enoshima, who was also Monokuma?) made with his disappearance, but eh. Hagakure _loved_ using fog, because it added a great mystery element to everything, but it seemed not everybody shared his totally-not-humble opinion.

But, then again, this wasn’t any other day. Because Hagakure had just woken up from death like a zombie and all his friends—friends that he’d apparently known for _years,_ and wow that might make things make some sense, but it was a _headache_ to think about for more than two seconds—were undead zombies too, and the self-christened ‘Bitch Who Started All This’ was revealing herself to everybody for the first time ‘cuz she knew they’d all freak out over it, so Hagakure really didn’t have the mental capacity at that moment to focus on much more than trying not to rip out all his hair when he pulled it over his face in a game of ‘ _i can’t see the monster, so the monster can’t see me_ ’.

Though, on the bright side of a situation that felt like it really shouldn’t have one, Enoshima’s more bloodthirsty qualities didn’t completely make their way through the little static-filled screen, so _hey_ , those little victories, right?

Not that he _missed_ her particular brand of psycho or anything. Really, _no,_ Hagakure was almost four-thirds positive that, given the opportunity, he could go the rest of his maybe immortal life, because he was _really confused_ as to what this whole back-to-life thing meant, without even a mention of her. It’d certainly put him in a better place mentally. Sadly, seeing as she was staring at him at that exact moment, it'd probably never happen. Occult help him.

Not that he _believed_ in that occult stuff or anything. It was all _absolute, total, freaking bullcrap_ — but, uh, whatever. He digressed.

Enoshima’s unrealistically huge eyes bored into the camera’s lens for a few extra and totally unnecessary moments—really, _stop it already_ —after her out-of-place speech ended, too bright and sharp like the day she killed him, and Hagakure was struck with that kind of absolute horror that probably only happened when someone met the straight gaze of their murderer. It almost felt like he’d just been shot all over again, breathless and feeling like he needed to throw up really  _really hard_ , and he couldn’t quite name anything that felt worse than actually legit  _dying._

Almost like she knew about the terror that had just backhanded Hagakure, and maybe punched him in the gut too—it _sounded_ accurate, at least—Enoshima started to laugh, laugh, laugh herself silly, totally breathless with it. The intercoms crackled. No one moved, not even when she started to wind back down, sputtering and choking for air between her laughter and fighting to get her breath back. Enoshima wiped at her eyes, at the tears in the corners, and reached somewhere out of the camera’s view.

The room flooded white when the lights switched back on. A few people made made sounds of surprise, but most just flinched back and blinked it out. Well, he couldn’t exactly see them to confirm it, but Hagakure at least _assumed_ that’s what people like Oogami did.

Hagakure was, admittedly, one of the ones who kinda yelled, and it took him a just a little too long to rub his eyes back into working order. Once he’d been able to clear his vision enough for the purple smudge in front of him was Kirigiri again, he looked back to see Enoshima’s smile had disappeared. Actually, that was wrong, her face had gone completely slack, eyes all empty and void of life, or something else unnatural like that.

“Wow.” Enoshima said, and blinked down at them. Her voice was about as flat as a board. “That was pretty dramatic.”

There was a wave of silence, and then.

“What the _hell_ just happened!?” Kuwata shouted, which was a pretty good collection of the group’s thoughts at that moment, all wrapped up in just five nice and simple words. Short and sweet and simple, the literal _opposite_ of their situation.

Hagakure mumbled, really just to himself, “I was trying to tell all you guys it was her.” The words felt a little too late though, and, at that point, it was hardly a victory worth bugging them over. It was more like a setback in plot development, maybe a ‘wrong ending’ type thing.

Enoshima tilted her head and breathed out, all slow-like and stuff.

“That was pretty lame, wasn’t it.” She said, her voice actually dull enough to turn what _should_ have been a question into a statement instead. “I’m sorry about the lights, I had to make sure everyone could see me okay for the big reveal. This room was a pretty dumb decision on my part, with only the one monitor and stuff, and I probably should’ve used the entrance hall, but whatever. By the time I figured that out we were already all here together and it would’ve been a big problem to move everyone all over again.” Enoshima blinked, twice. _Slow_. “What would have been the point.”

The vacant stare kept up, and if Hagakure hadn’t seen more dead bodies then he could count on two hands over the past month, or what he was _pretty sure_ added up to a month, it’s not like they had _calendars_ around here or anything, he probably would’ve said he was looking at another one. Probably wait for Naegi and Kirigiri to start the investigation and everything. Short of the whole ‘slumping over bonelessly’ thing, Enoshima had to look down to a ‘T’. It was _really creepy_ , because well. Dead bodies. Duh.

Still, at least he could deal with her weird personality problem. He’d been introduce pretty thoroughly to the mechanic before he was shot and all, but he could see how he was one of the only ones who weren’t _totally_ freaked out by it. Most everyone looked some shade of uncomfortable, but those who missed Genocider Syo’s dramatic introduction seemed the most shaken. Maizono had turned her and Naegi’s slightly interlocked fingers into an inescapable death grip, while Fujisaki had stepped back behind Hagakure like earlier; Kuwata looked like he was fighting just to keep up a chill face and was mostly failing. Surprisingly enough, Yamada was freaking out too, but to an almost _worrying_ degree — was it even _healthy_ to sweat that much and bite your fingernails with that much gusto, _even_ when you’re stressed out? Hagakure almost wanted to say something to him.

It was Celestia who pulled it together first, and who was the first to address Enoshima since Kirigiri’s accusations earlier. Hagakure took it as welcomed distraction from Yamada’s impressive sweat glands— _jeez_ , how in the _world_ —and focused on her instead.

“I can’t help but notice that you’ve failed to appear before us in person, despite the obvious effort you’ve applied to your little performance.” Celestia noted, voice a little idle. “What a disappointment. Tell me, Mastermind, are you afraid of us? Of what we might do if you were within our reach? We _could_ enact revenge upon you, after all. _Hm._ ” She hummed softly. “Perhaps we would tear you limb from limb in a wild mob, or allow one of our larger brutes to crush your windpipe slowly between their fingers as we gleefully watch you suffocate. Both sound quite delightful to me, though admittedly quite messy.” Celestia mused all of this while she twirled her hair, something too cutesy for someone so devious.

He had a feeling that those weren’t just off the top of her head; she had always been vicious, in that all around sorta way.

After what was too long of a delay for someone like her, Enoshima's face finally changed again, and _of course_ it was the sad one. Why wouldn’t it be the sad one? Her eyes welled up with tears and her hands slid up from her lap to her pigtails, where her mushroom clips had—like the rest of her personalities’ decoration _things_ did whenever she switched between them—just _appeared._ Hagakure almost laughed when Celestia, the _ever composed_ Queen of Liars, jerked in surprise at the sudden drastic change. He really could sympathize with that.

“I am...afraid....” Enoshima admitted slowly with a sad little sniffle. _Gah,_ the sad one was one of the worst personalities! “You’re right, of course. _You’re right!_ If I showed up everyone would wanna beat me up and be mean to me. I—I bet the only reason Hagaichi didn’t come after me in that trial room was because he was so scared of me the _entire time_.” Her shoulders shook when she started to cry. _“Scared._ He was _scared._ Am I really that scary to you guys? Why? Oogami-san and Oowada-kun are scary looking, and you guys aren’t mean to _them!_ Why don’t you guys _like_ me?”

Naegi shifted, looking torn between _comforting_ her, of all things, and bursting into one of his usual ‘It’s all the Mastermind’s fault, don’t worry!’ speeches. Which, considering the subject at hand here, who actually _was_ the Mastermind, wouldn’t help the situation in anyway whatsoever. Expect for maybe make her bawl a little more. “Well, Enoshima-san, we...it’s not that we _don’t,_ it’s just that—that, you...” He paused, obviously struggling. “We _would_ like you, of course we’d, _er,_ like you Enoshima-san…well, uh I mean, it’s more like we _could_ like you…if, you know, you maybe didn’t trap us here and make us kill each other...?” Naegi winced at his own words.

Genocider Syo giggled, and it’d been so long since Hagakure had heard it he actually jumped at the sound. It was such an _nasty_ laugh—rude, he knew, but there was pretty much no other way to describe it—that you really had to be prepared for it not to react. “I don’t know how he does it! Such a big heart for such a little body!” She shook her head and waved her hands, almost smacking Celestia’s shoulder. A cold stare was sent her way for the possible collision. “Here we are ladies and gentlemen, presenting one Makoto Naegi, the boy so sweet he consoles the chick who _crushed_ him with a trash compressor! Like literally, there was blood and guts _everywhere,_ it was actually kinda disgusting. Give him hand, everyone!”

A pretty loud sound, kinda like someone had been strangled, made Hagakure look to his left. Maizono looked a little nauseous and kinda like she wanted to cry too.

“I can’t help it! She’s actually _crying,_ what do you expect me to do!? I can’t be mean to someone who’s crying their eyes out!” Naegi defended and motioned towards Enoshima on the screen. Sure enough, she had start full-out _sobbing_ at that point, no longer just the little soft tears. Well, that had escalated quicker than it had the last few times Hagakure could remember.

“How about you do _literally anything_ but what you’re doing right now!” Asahina shouted, all too exasperated.

Togami made one of his many noises of absolute disgust. “This entire performance has been overwhelmingly pathetic from start to finish.” He stated with a sneer. “I have to say, this weeping mess of a villain is nothing short of a complete disappointment. I can’t believe that I wasted my time vowing to destroy her. Then again, I can’t say I’m proud to know the plebeian willing to console such a train wreck.” Togami crossed his arms, nose in the air, and turned his head to the side, away from the group. “It’s hard to decide what’s more pathetic.”

“N-Naegi-kun.” Enoshima hiccuped into her hands. “I can’t believe you, that you even _c-care_ about me! After _everything_ that I did, all those things I showed you guys and told you! Everyone’s gotta...gotta _hate_ me by now! I _know_ it!”

Oowada made a sound that, if Hagakure hadn’t actually known better, would’ve made him think he was in _pain._ His hand was held up over held over his eyes, like he was trying to shade them from some really harsh sunlight, even though the room was only  _moderately_  bright. Like the kind of florescent lights you see in a convenience store or something. “Stop it! Stop cryin’ like that!” He growled. “You’re givin’ me a headache!” At that point, his voice was doing that thing where it got  _really_ loud because he was _really_ uncomfortable.

Surprisingly, it was Maizono who balked at him, not Ishimaru or something. She looked a little less sick than before too. “Wait, Oowada-kun...? Do you, you feel bad for her too?” She asked with a note of hesitation and, _wow,_ she actually still had that death grip on Naegi. The poor guy, his hand was totally white and he hadn’t even _complained._ Ouch.

Oowada swiveled to her. “ _Fuck_ no I don’t!” He was still _really_ loud. “I just—” Oowada shook his head. “I don’t like it when dames start cryin’! It ain't right to just _let it happen,_ and, so—so just, _shut up_!” He finished with an angry big-dog bark and red face, his hands doing their weird jitter spasming thing again. Maizono didn’t looked too offended at least, though she was still regaining the color on her face.

“There _—There_ it is! All I d-do is _ruin_ everyone’s day, and just b-by _existing!_ I’m walking _despair._ ”

Syo snickered. _“And_ you’re startin’ to sound like Gloomy on top of that! Is this the type of self-deprecating crap you guys have to put up from her with when I’m not here making everyone’s day just a little brighter?” She asked. “I guess I’ll just have to make sure I stick around more often, because this is _hella_ annoying!”

“ _No!_ ” Hagakure yelled instantly, with Asahina and, _surprisingly_ , Togami, though he sounded more annoyed than worried. Fukawa may have been taxing, but having Syo spend more time as the dominant personality was the complete opposite of what anyone but would even remotely call a good idea.

Enoshima was still weeping loud—almost as loud as Oowada was shouting, _seriously_ —and it had probably been five solid minutes, the longest he’d had to endure her hysterical crying in a single ‘Sad’ session. Actually, it might’ve been the longest he’d seen her stick to something period, a scheme that was obviously working in her favor at the moment; she’d been crying for so long that it was starting to actually look _genuine._ Naegi and Naegi’s bleeding heart had started to gain its followers, which was decidedly a _terrible thing_ to happen. Both Kuwata and Oogami had those hesitant and confused expressions that said they were debating _not_ seeing Enoshima as the dastardly villain she clearly was, while Ishimaru, Yamada, Fujisaki, and Maizono looked all too ready to board the Sympathy Train for Evil Masterminds. Um, _no._

“Stop it, stop it, stop it! Stop that this instant! _Guys,_ no!”

Yamada blinked at him, cautious, with his hands tight on his backpack straps. “...Hagakure-kun...?”

“What are you talking about?” Fujisaki added carefully. “Did something happen?”

“Oh no, no, _no,_ we’re stopping this roadside sideshow _right now_! With all of you!” Hagakure continued. He was just inches away from facepalming, a rare commodity for someone like him. It was usually the other way around, with everyone facepalming at him, but still. Was everyone just suddenly blind or something? Enoshima was _evil._ Like, that pure kind that didn’t even have a depressing backstory or supernatural background. Evil for fun. Maybe even _funevil._ “For _occult’s_ sake, stop comforting her or feeling sad for her or being nice to her! Guys, this is what she _does,_ with all these different personalities! Enoshima-chi uses them to freak you out so she can get you right where she wants you, and _that’s_ bleeding against the elevator with her stupid stuffed bear in your face!”

Kuwata eyed him, too incredulous for someone who’d just heard something that was _absolutely_ true. “That’s one pretty damn specific end goal.”

“What you’re telling us this that swapping from one extreme emotion to another isn’t uncommon for her, Hagakure-kun?” Kirigiri cut in, all business. It was almost surreal for her to be looking at him, _Hagakure,_ the _comic relief,_ for serious intel, but it was also pretty cool, if he was being honest. Like a super spy checking in with HQ; a younger and shorter James Bond, with dreads.

“Well, uh. Kinda,” Hagakure said, trying not to look as giddy as he felt. Last time he let himself get all excited Kirigiri had shut him down and _fast._ Really, Syo hadn’t been wrong, it _had_ been pretty harsh, even by her standards. “They’re more like a bunch of separate personalities, but she’s still the same person, just acting like a different one. Enoshima-chi had like five or six different ones she mostly used when we talked after those sharks ate Asahina-chi, but that ‘Mom’ one she used earlier is new—”

“I’m sorry,” Oogami said, sounding the literal opposite of _sorry,_ while Asahina made a strangled kind of sound and frantic motion with her free hand. “But _**what** did you say_?” He turned to look at her, prepared to turn what he was _going_ to say into something along a complaint because, jeez, can’t a guy have a measly _five minutes_? And Kirigiri had finally been listening to him too!

Then again, as Hagakure was getting a better look at Oogami’s eyes, he could see the lightning all in them; he could also see her now stalking over to him, like it was _him_ who put Asahina in a tank with those man-eating fishes—bad thoughts, oh, _those are bad thoughts_ —and then he could _really_ see her eyes, because she was hoisting him up by the collar of his shirt and—oh, wow, _easy_ there, _gah_ —Hagakure decided it was probably best if he didn’t complain. Yeah.

“I swear it wasn’t me!” Hagakure denied. He squirmed in her hands and cringed, preparing himself in case Oogami decided a death blow one-hit K.O. type punch was in order for his perceived attack. And to _think,_ he’d just become a zombie only to die another probably painful death at the hands of another terrifying woman. _Occult help him_ , Hagakure was never gonna even _look_ at a threatening woman after this, because apparently that was a direct _challenge_ or something and _why did the universe hate him_?

Oogami was basically growling in his face and everyone else looked too confused to actually step in. On the other hand, Asahina looked torn on what she should do, but she still _wasn’t saying anything in his favor_ , and really, she needed to hurry up with the defending him thing, preferably before he got beaten to a bloody pulp— _c’mon already—and_ everyone was  _still_ just watching them. Wait. No, wait. Was, was someone _snickering?_ The traitor!

But then, just a quick as it’d started, the freaky fire that burned in Oogami’s eyes went out, and she took two slow breaths to settle herself. Hagakure was set carefully on the floor—ground, oh _sweet_ ground, he would've _kissed_ it if that wasn't weird or gross—and she turned towards the monitor with a deliberate, slow pace. Oogami’s shoulders were steeled.

It was obviously Enoshima who had snickered throughout the ordeal, _obviously,_ because there was only one other person that Hagakure had ever seen smile when they were so obviously guilty and even Celestia hadn’t looked _that_ deranged about it. Like he’d said—or _thought,_ whatever—before, Enoshima was totally _messed up_ , leering at them with her face probably an inch away from the camera. It was a miracle the screen hadn’t fogged up or anything.

Enoshima grinned at them, three miles wide, and half of them flinched at it. Her little mushroom hairclips had disappeared, just a quick as they’d come. “Oh my _fucking God,_ you actually thought that _he’d_ done it?” She collapsed back with a mocking snort and howl, holding onto her stomach with clawing hands. It was sharper than the laughter before, less breathless and more like ‘I’m gonna fuck you up once I’m done with this’. Hagakure realized with a lurch which personality it was, and promptly moved even further behind Oogami. If the sad one was bad, this one was _terrible._

Uugh, Enoshima so was just so _mean_ when she was the rocker chick. And she cursed every, like, _two_ words. It was _weird._

“Wow, I’m almost fuckin’ _speechless._ Goddamn, you always know _just_ how to surprise me! That bozo couldn’t execute his way out of a wet paper bag, much less Milk Jugs over there.” She waved a hand over to Asahina lazily, who held Kuwata just a _little_  bit tighter, before she stuck her tongue out at them. “All that machinery ain't cheap, and neither is the labor to screw the damn pieces together! Can’t you bastards just give me one _ounce_ of credit? I put my fuckin’ blood, sweat, tears, and all those other bodily fluids into that shit! Everyone here has _shitty_ taste, apparently!” Enoshima hissed, voice suddenly low and bitter and eyes suddenly narrow and frustrated. It was really worse then will she looked _dead,_ honestly.

“If only you actually _were_ speechless.” Syo sighed, a hand pressed over her forehead. Her flopped out tongue almost matched Enoshima’s, which was a terrible thought that Hagakure pushed away _immediately._ “I’m starting to get bored here! The personality-jumper slot is already _taken,_ y’know!” She frowned, as if she’d been personally offended. Like it was her _right,_ and _only hers,_ to be the crazy one. “Find your own gimmick, ya schmuck!”

Enoshima actually paused. “Hm.” She hummed with a tilted head, half her face scrunched up. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d ever be right, but you just fuckin’ _proved me wrong_. Someone needs to write this shit down! I thought all of you were total idiots, but I guess not!” With a shake of her head, she waved them off. “Everyone needs to move their ass out; I’m not going to spill everything just because you all were too _stupid_ to stay alive! Maybe you all should just swarm Hagaichi, because I’m _sick of it_! Other evil Masterminds don’t get treated like shit the way I do! So why do _I_ have to suffer? Get the fuck out already!”

Maizono jolted forward. “You can’t!” She protested, voice strained as she accidentally pulled Naegi with her. Their hands were actually _still_ together and she still hadn’t seemed to notice it, _wow._ He made a small sound. “You’ve barely told us anything at all! _I_ —I mean, we, we have to know what h-happened.” Maizono stumbled over her words, looking away awkwardly at her mishap.

“Yeah! Why don’t you start to fuckin’ talk _!_? All you’ve done so far is screw with us!” Oowada growled.

“ _Yack, yack, yack!_ All we do is _talk_ and that’s such a lame ass waste of my time.” Enoshima rolled her eyes, unimpressed like she usually was with the rocker chick. “I might just break in the teeth of the next person who complains!  Look, you little bitches, all this fuckin’ monologuing _kills_ my mood faster than you dolts can kill each other.” Again, she rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms tight. It’d look like she was pouting if her eyes weren’t still so _sharp._ “The real question is what _fucked up shit_ I need to start to make this all more interesting.”

“Little sister.” It might have just been her being brave—though _stupid_ sounded more like it—but it was also the first time Mukuro Ikusaba had piped up since Kirigiri had presented her to the world like a museum showcase, so no one interrupted her.

Enoshima’s eyes darted over to her, like a really big and really scary vulture who’d found a juicy, rotting corpse. “Big Sis Muku!” Enoshima was totally cooing at her, but it wasn’t one of her personality shifts. Those vulture eyes of her were too cruel for the cute one. “What’s the worthless shit idea you’ve got to give me this time?”

Naegi looked like he had half a mind to speak up—because, _wow,_ sisterly love much, jeez, even _Hagakure_ had a better relationship with his Dad and he burned their house down with a _cigarette—_ but Ikusaba didn’t let the silence hang long enough to let him. “You should still have the entirety of the First Round recorded. With all those cameras.” She stated.

“Recorded?” Kuwata repeated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? We were being _recorded!?”_ He sounded just a little panicked, and his face scrunched up like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “How much _!?_ ”

Ishimaru made a noise, looking just as freaked out as Kuwata did in his own stick-straight, composed way. “That’s a horrible invasion of our privacy!”

Enoshima blinked down at them, the first time Hagakure had ever seen her actually _surprised,_ before her lips curled upwards. “Oh, _Muku!”_ She squealed with a high giggle, hands curled like they were supposed to be claws or something. And there was the cute one, _great._ Enoshima giggled a _lot_ when she was the cute one. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Sis! You thought something up and it was _useful!?_ That’s a first! _Aw~_ Big Sis Muku! This is the bestest thing I’ve heard all day!”

“What exactly did you mean Ikusaba-san?” Fujisaki asked, shoulders spiked up uncomfortably at what she was implying. No one seemed to like the idea very much, but especially not the people who had died earliest in the Round.

Huh, yeah. Hagakure almost forgot that not everyone knew about the broadcast thing. He’d kinda just adjusted to it and mentally shoved it aside over time. It wasn’t _that_ weird, as long as you never ever _ever_ thought about it. Then again, that strategy had just kinda become a way of life for most surprises by the end of the game. Even Kirigiri had gotten over this particular bit of information pretty quick, and she lived and breathed _secret things that others can’t ever know_. It was, like, _half_ her personality.

Enoshima simpered, all cute and innocent on the outside and Satan spawn on the inside. “What Big Sis Muku suggested was a _bea—”_

 _“Beary_ good idea on how to get everyone up to speed with what happened after their deaths.” Ikusaba cut her off. Her shy, confused frown and the steeled determination she’d had moments ago were the only two expressions Hagakure had seen on her face yet—except, of course, when she’d been _dead_ and her was face too blown up to make out anyway—but for the first time he could see a hint of a cocky smile. It looked out-of-place, really. “We may not be on the same side anymore, but I still know your tricks. And wordplay.”

With a dramatic gasp and desperate shake of her head, Enoshima pouted at her. “Different sides!? Big Sis _Muuuku,_ you can’t do that to me _already!”_ She whined, drawing out the ‘U’ in Ikusaba’s nickname, and there was a small muffled thud, like she’d stomped her foot.

“Yes.” Ikusaba trudged to the front-front of the group, past even Kirigiri’s position at the head of the group. He could see the two briefly meet eyes, but that was it and then Ikusaba was faced away from her to look her sister in the eye, belaying her seriousness. “I might have sworn a soldier’s loyalty to you, but that day in the gym was the last time that I will take your orders. I will not stand to be used and betrayed. Just thrown aside. You shattered my confidence in you, my ability to believe in your word, and I’ve come to realize that you... Junko-chan, you don’t care about me at all. And you never have, have you? That’s why I can’t remember anymore, because I was always just another player to you. Just another student to get killed in the end.” Ikusaba paused, voice suddenly thick, and Hagakure could see the heavy emotions through just her _back._ “No soldier would ever follow the lead of a backstabbing general, Junko-chan; consider this my official resignation from your ranks. I quit.”

Enoshima kept silent, her face dead like before. Another corpse on the screen.  _Jeez_.

“You expected this, I think. To hear me say this. That’s why I woke up in the storage room with Kirigiri-san like I did, as if I were just another player. You know I couldn’t continue to follow you after that.” Her back started to shake — oh jeez, the SHSL Soldier was crying, Hagakure didn't know soldiers were even _allowed_ to cry. “I knew my job and what I was supposed to do, and while betraying my friends _hurt,_ I-I believed in you and thought that making this happen was the right thing to do. I trusted you! Then you _killed_ me, Junko-chan. You’re m-most _loyal_ and _loving_ follower, and you just execute me without a second thought, probably just for the _despair_ of it. I ate up every little word that came out of your mouth and you— _you_ killed me for it.” Ikusaba looked like she was fighting to stop her obvious tears, and reached up to probably wipe at her eyes or nose. “I was such an _idiot_ to believe in you. I know better. I should know _you.”_

“She had fooled us all at one point or another.” Oogami said easily, but her eyes had that lightning in them again and Hagakure did his best not to make any sudden movements. “There’s no need for anyone to blame themselves too harshly for what’s happened, no matter their role in the situation.”

Asahina nodded, even though it was pretty clear that Ikusaba wouldn’t be able to see her without turning around to look. “Yeah,” She agreed, much softer. Asahina sounded guilty, like _really_ guilty, and Hagakure had a few ideas as to why. That whole ‘stab you with my fork and knife’ thing would be a little hard to forget, after all. And the ‘we killed Sakura-chan so we should all die’ thing too. Well, Hagakure wasn’t going to hold it against her after all the other crap they'd gone through together. “Enoshima-chan obviously knows how to push everyone’s buttons to get them to do what she wants.”

“Listen to me, Ikusaba-san,” Naegi started with a soft smile.

Her head whipped back, as if she’d been caught by surprise. When Hagakure squinted, he could see the red blotches on her face and the wet streaks she’d been wiping at.

“No one here will blame you for loving your sister and believing she felt the same way. I know I’d do absolutely anything for my own sister Komaru, no matter what she asked. You gave Enoshima-san the benefit of the doubt because you thought you could trust her, and she used that to lead you astray.” He gave a confident look, his smile brighter. “But now you’ve got all of us on your side, so you don’t have to worry about it. We’ve all been played by Enoshima-san one way or another, so you’re really no guiltier than the rest of us.”

Ikusaba’s eyes were wide, like saucers with little _itty-bitty_  blue dots in the center of each, and her face had turned even redder over the course of his little speech. But not with tears, with _blush._ It was like all of that stone cold determination had dissolved. “Th-Thank you, Naegi-kun,” She mumbled, bordering on a whisper. “That means a lot. Especially from you.”

Naegi blinked. 

There was the scratch of a pen against paper. “How,” Enoshima sighed, soft and displeased, "disappointing.”

Hagakure’s head snapped back up to the monitor; Enoshima had went quiet for so long that he’d almost forgotten she was still there. Emphasis on _almost._ But, seriously, how in the world could anyone forget about _her?_ He almost wanted to kick himself.

Enoshima was looking down at them—as _usual,_ at that point, because another angle would _kill her_ or something—and, yep, sure enough, there was the clipboard and wire glasses. Enoshima hadn’t even used it _once_  up until now, which was pretty weird, even for her. It’d been her main ‘explain things’ personality during their little meetup.

“It seems as though you haven’t changed since we were children, Muku. All one must do is send a single kind smile in your direction and you let yourself melt like a popsicle in the summer sun.” Enoshima looked down, uninterested, and tapped her clipboard. “Despite this accurate observation, you have, for once, spouted words worth my time to hear. I would despise wasting anymore of my time here while there are more important things that need my attention; for the next hour everyone should keep from the gym. I trust you fifteen are capable enough to amuse yourselves between the three available floors, maybe reminisce in squandered memories or rekindle squandered relationships. Once the designated hour has ended, you can trust that I’ll have properly prepared the gym for our next playtime together, inspired by your newest _‘friend’.”_ Despite the stilled tone, she pretty much spat the last word.

Hagakure had a feeling that it was a bad idea, what with how much Enoshima scared the living daylights out of him, but apparently his sense of self-preservation was shot, maybe from dying or maybe from watching a _bunch_ _of people_ dying, so he ended up asking it anyway. “So, uh, wait. What’s the whole ‘next playtime’ thing going to be?”

Enoshima smirked, slight and arrogant. Like usual. “It’s a sleepover, of course.” She said. “I plan to help recover those squandered relationships with a little _visual assistance_.”

 

 

 

 

The tense atmosphere Enoshima had left between the group—after one final, sob-filled reminder that she would be forced to punish anyone who decided to enter the gymnasium early—hadn’t so much dissipated, as it had instead been abandoned altogether. It hadn’t taken but a minute of awkward lingering before Celestia had departed, straight to the dorms. The group seemed to take that as a signal, and split up rather quickly and without fuss. Like Celestia, both Togami and Yamada had wasted no time in retreating to their rooms, while others like Oogami and Asahina—and Kuwata by technical extension, since he couldn’t walk anywhere without Asahina’s support—made their way to some of the more communal rooms, like the cafeteria.

Naegi hadn’t exactly felt like keeping to his lonesome at the time, so he'd appreciated the idea of spending his hour of free time in the kitchen. It was open and welcomed people, be it to stop by for a snack or to stay and chat. And he’d _really_ liked the idea of sticking around other people for the time being.

He’d survived long enough to know the feeling of an empty room; those too-quiet breakfasts where the shadows loomed over vacant chairs, the daytime that was spent in hallways with the hope that someone else might just maybe be around that had enough sense left to hold a reasonable conversation. The idea of sitting in his room, _alone_ , stuck with thoughts about his own death was almost as appealing as trying his luck with the gymnasium before Enoshima called them back.

So Naegi had started to make his way to the kitchen and invited Maizono too. They could maybe eat some snacks, try to make up for lost time together and clean up whatever their weird relationship had become after her death. It was meant to be time spent clearing the air between them, so to speak. She’d agreed with absolutely no hint of hesitation.

And then he’d noticed Ikusaba.

The other girl hadn’t bothered to move from her place in the middle of the room. She had just watched while, one by one, her classmates—who had never once known her as _her_ , but as her _sister_ instead—had scattered from the room without so much as a look backwards, and maybe Naegi didn’t know her any better than anyone else there but he was at least willing to try. Ikusaba deserved that much, at least.

Naegi nudged Maizono, who’d finally just let go of his hand that she’d claimed since the lights had shut off— _ouuch_ , she had one heck of a tight grip,  _that_  was for sure—and motioned towards Ikusaba as discreetly as possible, while also shaking out the hand she’d been holding as discreetly as possible. She’d paused, like she was thinking it over, before Maizono had flashed a smile and followed him over with a skip in her step.

The slight tears of what Naegi definitely hoped was gratitude in her eyes when he invited her made him wish he’d noticed sooner. Ikusaba shadowed behind as they made their way to the cafeteria, just one nervous but loyal step behind.

The almost odd trio had made themselves at home in the cafeteria, seated at the largest table that sat in the center of the dining room with the extra tea that Oogami had offered. They chatted about absolutely nothing. They greeted each and every person that came through the door. They helped Oogami make another pot for her own companions, while Asahina joked and Kuwata laughed to fill the space. It was nice.

For a while, he could even pretend that they were regular classmates, talking about regular things. Maizono had shared stories of countries abroad that she’d visited for her music — Indonesia and America, specifically. Ikusaba had hesitantly offered stories of her time in the desert as a Fenrir assassin, to which both Maizono and Naegi found themselves in awe of. Throughout the entire story, Ikusaba had interrupted herself with blushes and admissions of her perfect record, which only served to further their amazement. Naegi himself didn’t have much to add besides a couple shorter family stories, but he was happy to listen all the same.

But, as it did, the inevitable weight of the situation leaked back into their words until it was impossible to pretend they _were_ regular, and the conversation lulled into total seriousness.

It was Maizono who gathered her courage to ask first, and she politely waited until Asahina and Oogami helped Kuwata into the kitchen so the other three couldn’t eavesdrop. “Ikusaba-san, I...I have to ask...” she eased in carefully, and Ikusaba’s shoulders stiffened despite it, as if she had caught wind of what Maizono was going to ask. “Why did your sister do this? _Any_ of this? It just, it just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Selfish as it was, Naegi was glad that she was been the one to cave first and ask. His self-control had been slipping throughout the entire conversation and he’d been worried that the question would offend her. Being rude wouldn’t exactly be a great start to their friendship.

“I—” And the words were stuck in Ikusaba’s throat. She looked off to the side, like she was ashamed of something.

His heart sank at her hesitation. Naegi didn’t want to be upset with her, he really didn’t, but he _needed_ information. Yes, Ikusaba was terribly brave for how she’d decided to fight against her own sister and stood beside the rest of them, but she was still a vital source about the inner workings of their situation and captor; Naegi needed something, _anything_ , to relay back to Kirigiri, so they could use it to figure out their next move towards escape. Kirigiri had probably already discovered a plethora of new information after he’d been executed but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do his part. And now that everyone was alive again, well — higher risks and higher rewards, as the saying went. Fifteen lives was a pretty good motivation to get his tail in gear.

Naegi hoped that Kirigiri would, at the very _least_ , let him in on what he’d missed. Her habit of keeping everything to herself wouldn’t do them much good, and he’d prefer to hear it straight from her rather than Enoshima.

“Ikusaba-san,” he said in what he was _pretty sure_ sounded like confidence. Ikusaba turned to him, making the same deer-in-the-headlights expression she’d made when he addressed her before, and gave a slight nod. “I want you to know we aren’t mad at you. We aren't going to hurt you either, no matter what it is you say. So _please_ , if there’s anything you can tell us, don’t hesitate. It doesn’t matter how irrelevant you think it is because we really need everything we can get at this point.”

There was a long stretch of silence, filled only by Maizono’s slow breaths, in which Ikusaba just silently stared at him, her expression frozen on her face. Well. Naegi’s throat tightened, _because she wasn’t going tell say anything, she won’t tell us **anything**_ , but then Ikusaba shook her head and his sudden panicked thoughts stopped.

“I can remember most of my thoughts while I pretended to be Junko-chan.” Ikusaba began, voice soft. Her eyes burned holes into the tabletop. “But everything before that...any plans, or details that everyone else doesn’t already know, even when we must have just started to put everything into motion...it’s all empty. Just blank spaces. I think my sister was able to remove my memories when she revived me; I can’t remember where we are, or how she locked us all inside this building, or where the exit is. All I can remember is how Junko-chan convinced me to dress up like her, and how I _had_ to convince you all that I was her. That I was Junko Enoshima. It feels so surreal now, how _mad_ I was for her approval.” Her shoulders had hunched, repentant. “That’s all. I’m sorry that I don’t have more.”

Naegi tried not to let his disappointment show, but by Ikusaba’s ashamed expression he figured he must not have fooled her. Maizono held no such qualms.

Maizono lurched across the table. “That’s it?” She asked, almost _desperate_. Maizono paused, as if realizing how uncomposed she'd become, and leaned back against her chair. With a forced, slow sip at her tea, she continued in a much calmer, yet tenser tone. “I mean, there’s nothing else at all, Ikusaba-san?”

“No. Absolutely nothing.” Ikusaba’s voice sounded just as upset as Maizono’s and Naegi couldn’t stop his sigh of frustration. The situation was only getting _worse_ , it seemed.

 _Great_. Another advantage taken right from under their noses before they’d even been able to properly acknowledge it or fully utilize it. This was like Alter Ego all over again; _that_ particular loss had felt like it was all their own faults, too. Enoshima clearly knew what she was doing when she'd sent Ikusaba back out into the field by erasing Ikusaba’s memories, which had effectively knocked out any chance of them acquiring an inside woman. It was like they were right back at the very beginning again. Though, _honestly_ , that’s what this mass reunion had become, hadn’t it? One big setback?

It hurt, knowing this was just another giant leap backwards to square one with Enoshima still holding all the cards; another game, set, match.

Without precedent, the doors slammed open. Maizono clutched at her chest and let out a short gasp, trying to calm her speeding heartbeat, while Naegi himself struggled in not to throw his teacup in surprise. Ikusaba just twitched ever so slightly in the corner of her lip. Despite all of this Kirigiri didn’t shown a drop of concern, and instead stalked over to the group with her expression determined.

She stopped, a couple feet from their table. “Naegi-kun, I need you to come with me.” She said, no ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ to soften her demand; it wasn’t a question anyway because Kyouko Kirigiri did not _ask_.

Naegi idly wondered what she'd done to Hagakure after she’d dragged him away, probably for questioning on what he so-obviously knew, and nearly began to beam as a thought came to him. Kirigiri _must_ have learned something from Hagakure, and she was _choosing_ to share it with Naegi. Ah yes, _finally_ — it was always nice to be included and kept up to speed with what little information they could gather.

On the other hand, Maizono did _not_ look happy about the command, and he _really_ should have seen something like this coming between them. Neither Maizono nor Kirigiri seemed like they would get along very well, but he couldn’t tell why. “Hey!” Maizono interjected sharply. “Just what do you think you’re doing? You can’t just walk in here and drag Naegi-kun away without an explanation. You didn’t even _ask_ him! He gets a _choice_.”

Kirigiri spared her a single, unamused look—as well as a much swifter one for Ikusaba, who kept her attention glued solely to the table—before she turned back to him, eyes now narrower than before. It was her Look. The one that said he’d better _shut his trap and_ _listen_ , because she had something important to share with him.

It almost made him feel guilty, because their free time was almost over and he had promised Maizono and Ikusaba he would spend the entirety of it with them, and, even if their conversations had lulled, he hadn’t exactly wanted to entertain the idea of betraying his own word to them. But to be fair, he wasn't being given much of a choice. If Kirigiri thought it was too important to wait, well then, he’d just have to trust her word.

“I’ll see you guys back in the gym, okay?”

“Naegi-kun, I don’t like how she talks to you. It’s _rude_!”

His eyes flickered between the two girls. Ikusaba still had yet to dislodge her gaze from the table and Oogami sat in the corner of the cafeteria, too polite to intrude on the conversation. Naegi distantly wondered if Asahina and Kuwata were still in the kitchen. “It’s okay, Maizono-san,” he insisted as she started to rise from her seat, waving his hands at her to mimic gently pushing her back down. “Kirigiri-san is a friend.”

Maizono’s expression went from concerned to just a little hurt—then just a touch annoyed towards Kirigiri, which he pretended not to notice because at that exact moment he decided it was none of his business—and while Naegi wanted nothing more than to turn back around and pacify her until that face disappeared, well, Kirigiri was already making her way out of the cafeteria and he didn’t wanted to be left behind. Instead he gave a wave and smile, one that hopefully didn’t look as awkward as it felt, and followed her outside. Naegi held the door’s edge as it swung close, just to be positive it didn’t slam. He didn’t want anyone thinking he was mad at them, especially Maizono or Ikusaba, what with one friendship under renovation and another still in construction. That would be a terrible set-back he'd rather avoid.

“So,” Naegi turned towards Kirigiri, who was scoping out the abandoned commons area with a hand on her chin, “What’s—?”

Kirigiri hushed him. “We can’t talk here; let’s use the laundry room. It’s unlikely anyone else is inside and the cameras hardly matter at this point.”

As predicted, the room was utterly empty, though a few articles of clothing were left strung up on the clotheslines. Kirigiri set to work the moment he closed the door, flicking each dryer on _Heavy Dry_ and turning all the washers on _Heavy Wash_ with no detergent. It left the room rumbling with noise; Naegi could feel his teeth vibrating.

“That’s good enough.” She conceded after switching on the final machine; he needed to step close up against her side just to hear her over the roar. “Not perfect, but good enough.”

Naegi took two chairs and dragged them side by side for both to sit in, but even at this new range it was still difficult to hear her. They leaned close together, their noses almost touching, but the seriousness in Kirigiri’s expression forced away any and all awkward feelings Naegi felt about the position otherwise.  

“I saw you and Hagakure-kun together earlier.” Naegi admitted. Truthfully, ever since the first trial, he’d become accustomed to _noticing_ things, all the little odds and ends about his environment and how others acted, which was definitely something that he hadn’t been able to do before. It was convenient for trials, yes, but it made him feel like he was spying on his friends when there was nothing to investigate. “Did he tell you anything?”

Kirigiri nodded, saying something that Naegi couldn’t quite catch. He leaned closer and she repeated herself. “He informed me of what happened after my death. It wasn’t as coherent as I would have preferred from an informant, a little too much babbling was involved and he fell off topic more than I liked, but Hagakure-kun gave me enough to work with. I’m fairly positive he shared everything that was worth knowing, at least.” She let out an aggravated sigh, and Naegi didn’t hear it so much as he saw it. “I’d already assumed some of what he told me, though I lacked concrete evidence for most of it. Though, what _has_ been confirmed only complicates things.”

Naegi tried not to frown at her, but how much more complicated could everything get? At this point they had already figured out some of the weirdest stuff, like how Enoshima had taken over airwaves to broadcast their game and that she could, _somehow_ , revive them from death.

Kirigiri continued, not bothered by his lack of response. “Apparently, before she murdered him, Enoshima-san hinted towards bringing the group back to life. That eliminates the possibility that none of us had actually died and had simply been fooled into thinking that we had, as well as the chance that her executions were false. It also insinuates that she had the means to revive us beforehand, if she bothered to mention it, so it’s logical to assume Enoshima-san has held this up her sleeve for a while.”

“Does that mean that Hagakure-kun was the last person alive?” He hadn’t meant to sound so skeptical, but after all, it was _Hagakure_ that they were talking about; he wasn’t exactly fit for ‘Survival of the Fittest’ situations. It was a surprise he hadn’t been the first murdered, if Naegi were being honest with himself.

“Yes.” Kirigiri confirmed, voice a whisper. “My death and Asahina’s execution would leave him as the sole player alive.” There was a pause, and she looked off towards the side while Naegi struggled not to ask for more details. He knew Enoshima wouldn’t want to skimp on any information anyway, not with the reactions everything was guaranteed to generate. “Enoshima-san also mentioned accomplices, though Hagakure-kun told me couldn’t recall what name she’d called them by.”

“But we already _knew_ that. First was Oogami-san, and now Ikusaba-san; she’s had accomplices the entire time! I mean, neither have any reason to work with her anymore, but they still _have_. She must have been talking about them to confuse Hagakure.”

She shook her head. “No. He told me that Enoshima-san spoke of Ikusaba-san separately. He hadn’t realized this when he’d told me, but this means there’s more than just Oogami-san. It’s unlikely she wouldn’t keep more people under her thumb even after she’s revealed herself to us. That’s too much of a hint, a _giveaway_ , that she must be confident she has more over us. Enoshima-san isn’t the type to spoil the biggest surprise until the very end.”

Naegi hesitated. What else could the Mastermind have over them? They’d already had their secrets, their darkest fears, their psychological weaknesses _exposed_ , carelessly thrown in their faces to taunt them into killing one another. There was no way Enoshima had _more_ , it was _impossible_. “...So...” He’d bit his lip. “We have another mole on our hands?”

“Maybe, but also maybe not.” Naegi didn’t comment on how absolutely _cryptic_ that sounded. When he was with Kirigiri it was like every word she spoke was turned to a verbal puzzle. “I’m not sure just yet. Either way, this wasn’t what I need to tell you.”

The dryers started to shake with increasing violence as they moved to the next part of their cycle.

“What else could there be? I thought you said that was all Hagakure-kun could tell you. Is something wrong, Kirigiri-san?”

She didn't even hesitate. "I discovered this the moment I woke up, though I checked my dorm room after speaking with Hagakure-kun to be sure I hadn't left it there and just forgotten." Kirigiri reached underneath the collar of her shirt and removed a length of silver chain; Naegi recognized it as one of the necklace chains from the art room. "Shortly after your execution, I attached the Headmaster's Key to this to be sure the Mastermind couldn't steal it off of me while I slept without running a high chance of waking me up in the process. Despite this, the chain was empty when I awoke in the storage room with Ikusaba-san and it wasn't in any of the locations I'd made in my room to hide it." She stared at him, face grim. "The Headmaster's Key is in Enoshima-san's possession again."

 _Fantastic_ , Naegi almost blurted. Alter Ego was executed, Ikusaba’s memories of her time behind the operation were gone, and their greatest advantage against the Mastermind was stolen back by its original owner, _the Mastermind_. It seemed any secret weapon they could gather was taken from them quicker than they could use it, and while Naegi tried his best to stay positive their already terrible situation had just graduated from _very bad_ to _even worse_ in a mere couple of hours.

"Enoshima-san must have removed it after I was killed, most likely while Asahina-san and Hagakure-kun were still in the trial room." Kirigiri theorized. "She'd made Monokuma react too volatile after I'd stolen it for her to act otherwise. The advantage it gave us was clearly too great for her to be comfortable with leaving as is."

Naegi's heart sunk. "Yeah, I think you're right," he agreed with a miserable sound. While each of them were now alive again—though, admittedly, not without certain consequences for some—it felt like they were crawling forward instead of running, that they were no closer to an exit than they'd been one month before. It was like a nightmare where the door to safety moved ever farther away with every inch gained. "I doubt Oogami-san will be able to break the lock again without getting caught." He thought the statement over. "Or that Enoshima-san would keep it in the same place again.” he added.

"Which means that we'll forget about it."

Naegi blinked at her and pulled back. " _What?_ "

"It's a fruitless endeavor to continue stewing over things that can't be changed. We're going to give up on that resource and look to our new one for guidance. It may not seem like it, but our previous game has offered us enough useful information to make do — the members of the group now associate with one another, some having formed close-knit relations, and we've seen enough of each other's personalities to estimate most any singular person's reactions to the stimuli in Enoshima-san's motivations. It will be easier to prevent any further murders with this information."

A trickle of hope warmed his chest at her assessment. Kirigiri was right, wasn't she? No one would let another murder happen  **—** not with their time together.

Naegi smiled. It was been hard not to, what with the confidence flooding his system like a drug, pumping him up. "You're right Kirigiri-san! We have less of a chance to play along with what the Mastermind wants or to fall for her motives this time. We were strangers then, and we were vulnerable, but now? _Now_ we’re all friends! She can’t break us apart from each other any more!” Naegi turned to Kirigiri. “Right?”

Naegi easily held in smile in place, waiting for her to respond...only Kirigiri didn't return the smile. Rather her expression became utterly blank in the face of his direct beam, similar to the expressionless mask Enoshima had worn earlier. Then, in a move that was nothing short of uncharacteristic for her usual confident self, she turned her attention downwards. She looked almost like she was...was...

 _Guilty_.

"Naegi-kun, I," Her shoulders went rigid, fists clenched tight in her lap. The leather squeaked in protest. "I-"

Kirigiri didn't looked up at him, but he could see the wide state of her eyes and the small size of her pupils and how her teeth were ground between her lips. Naegi tried to fathom what she was steeling herself to tell him — or, more so, he figured it out and immediately pushed the thought away as it appeared in search for a new reason. Kirigiri wouldn't bring that up. In fact, if there was _anything_ she would do, she would sidestep that entire conversation.

He would still ask, of course. Naegi wouldn't be able to ignore it with a clean conscious — not if she _did_ want to talk about it. "What do you want to talk about?" Kirigiri stiffened and he went for a different approach. "Do you need me to do something for you?" He asked instead.

"Even _now_." It was just a whisper, and if Naegi hadn't been but a few meager inches away and focused on her face, he would have missed it entirely. "Even after _that_ , you still want to help me. You still trust me."

He couldn't be sure whether he was meant to hear her or if Kirigiri had been talking to herself, but he wasn’t willing to ignore her. Her admission had been pretty specific. " _Of course_ I trust you, Kirigiri-san! We're friends!" Naegi told her, not for the first time, and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. "Friends forgive and forget, it’s what we do."

Kirigiri stilled then, only to straighten herself out and look at him again. She seemed to be in control of again, but only just so.

"...No, Naegi-kun, I'm not alright. I just thought that it was...it was prudent I admit that I've wronged you. I _wronged_ you in that trial room and my actions then are not to be ignored, not by me and not by you, no matter how much I would like for us to both to do so." Kirigiri grimaced. "I hadn't realized the situation I'd forced you into until you were—" Her voice stopped — no trail or fade, just a solid cut after the word.

But Naegi could hear it, could made out the remaining words to her confession. _Until you were crushed by the Mastermind._ _Until you were executed. Until you were **dead**._

"I understand any anger you may hold against me or any blame for your death that you may place upon my shoulders, because both are deserved. My actions were against everything you've shown me good friends do to one another, no matter how much my survival mattered at the time. I've thought back to your execution on...multiple...occasions afterwards and I—well, I. Naegi-kun, it was _awful_ to see you die as you did, if I’m frank. ...I... It's impossible to imagine how hard th-the experience had been for you and I—" Kirigiri's voice didn't cut as before but instead broke, an uncharacteristic crack and stutter causing her to stumble through her words.

One of the dryers had made a beep, to signal the wash had finished. The others followed, a screeching chorus of sound, and Naegi wished they wouldn't stop. He couldn't stand the thick silence between them. But still. He _needed_ to say something. It would be cruel to leave her so upset.

"You're...sorry." He stated with a careful slowness. Kirigiri looked down. "That's what you're trying to tell me, right? You want me to know you're sorry for killing me. Am I right?"

It was easy to say, almost too easy for a train of thought that made his chest tight and his bones ache if he were honest, but he knew well enough that it the true reason the words were so simple—so _easy_ —to say was because it was a _lie_. Junko Enoshima had killed him; Kyouko Kirigiri just hadn't stopped her. Though perhaps it wasn’t much better, it wasn’t necessarily _worse_ either, and he thought it was an important difference to remember.

"You're not the first person to apologize to me today, and I'm not really sure what I've done to deserve all of this, but I do know that you've already been forgiven, Kirigiri-san. I mean—" He paused, confidence wavering. Naegi needed to be honest with her, but. It probably wouldn't be the best confidence booster. Still, friends didn't keep things from friends; they'd already been there and done that, and it hadn’t gone well for either of them. "I felt betrayed and it _hurt_ , like you hadn’t cared whether I lived or not. And, maybe I still feel a little bit of that, but I understand.You had the Headmaster's Key.  You were important to the group and everyone's best chance of escape. I wasn't. So, Kirigiri-san, I want you to know that _I forgive you_. We've been over this."

Naegi took a moment to calm himself, look her in the eyes to make sure she knew he meant it, and smiled. It didn’t feel forced like he'd worried it would.

"We're friends, and friends trust and forgive each other. Remember?"

It was almost like when he’d forgiven Maizono, just without Kirigiri crying or falling to her knees when she had clutched him; Kirigiri did, however, have the same shocked and almost slack-jawed expression Maizono had sported, as if she too couldn't believe what Naegi was saying. Like his words were ludicrous, something made-up to keep their hopes high, only to be taken away just in time to watch them shatter. Naegi himself couldn't quite understand the sentiment—friends forgave each other, it's what they _did_ —but he didn't interrupt her moment.

Naegi couldn't make Kirigiri forgive herself, after all.

Then, just over the machines’ roar, something akin to a school bell exploded through the intercom system. Naegi didn’t bother to look for a clock in the room. He was positive their hour had come and gone and that it was finally time to see whatever the Mastermind had in store for them.

 

 

 

 

Naegi tried his best not to let the gymnasium’s decorated state confuse him too much, but, well. With the pure abundance of decorations, Enoshima’s apparent ability to sneak by all fifteen students and put the room into its current colored and covered state was almost impressive.

Though to be honest, the style Enoshima had chosen wasn’t all that impressive. Naegi might go so far as to say it was an embarrassment, but, then again, he himself hadn’t attended many sleepovers. Maybe this was how they usually looked?

The center of the room was dominated by a pyramid of black and white sleeping bags, one much too large to contain _only_ fifteen sleeping bags. It was left slightly lopsided, a handful of the bags already retrieved by students and dispersed about the floor as their chosen locations to sleep later that night. Multiple long, rectangular tables—all filled to ridiculous lengths with snacks and drinks, plates and cups, with not healthy option in sight—were pressed against the perimeter of the room, all covered by plastic pink table clothes. It was a neon shade, bright enough to hurt the eyes, and after his particularly violent month of schooling Naegi could recognize it anywhere. _Blood_ — what a surprise. Confetti and streamers of the same shades were scattered around the floor and wound between the rafters respectively, the decorative pink paper also attached to the walls in wide loops. Connected to the apex of each loop by a single piece of tape and prayer were small black and white balloons, a pink doodle of a student drawn onto each by means of a marker.

His own was an egg shaped face with a wide mouth, surrounded by sloppily drawn questions marks. _Okay_ then. Enoshima had had _way_ too much fun with this.

It took a few moments longer to notice that the chairs and podium that had once occupied the stage were replaced with a wide black screen, lowered from the ceiling and supported by cables. Monokuma was slumped in front of it, sitting on his butt and pounding furiously on a small black box. The screen’s remote, most likely.

Naegi wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about Monokuma’s presence, what with Enoshima’s identity already revealed, but decided it was best not to dwell on it.

“And here I’d thought Enoshima-san was stalling to make us paranoid.” Naegi commented, trying for a casual tone with the statement. He was positive he’d missed it by a mile. “I wonder how she moved all of this stuff in here.”

Kirigiri narrowed her eyes. “There’s too much to fit through any of Monokuma’s smaller passages around the school. If only I’d kept watch by the doors, then I could have seen how she transported all these materials or if _she_ transported them herself.”

“Then I’m glad I took it upon myself to do so!”  

Off to the pair’s side and just outside of the doorway stood Ishimaru, a plastic cup of what appeared to be fruit punch in his hand and his posture too tightly strung, like an overexcited sentinel. His eyes held their old excitable spark once again, that light that he’d lost after the second trial and execution having finally returned, and Naegi was relieved to recognize it's presence in his friend once again. Oowada was at the table just behind him, almost lurking, as he dug through the various types of chips that had been offered to the group; the plate he had balanced on the crook of his arm was almost overflowing with multiple snacks, a cup filled to the brim with a dark soda near crushed in his hand.

Ishimaru flashed his usual smile, setting his drink on some of the scarce available space on the table and beckoning the two closer. The white chunk of his hair fell across his forehead as he waved at them and ghosted between his eyes, just down the center. Ishimaru’s expression turned half disgruntled, half tired, as he brushed them away, only for the bangs to fall back. He gave them one of the dirtiest looks Naegi had ever seen him make, followed a much more apologetic expression to them, as if ashamed.

“I must apologize for being so inappropriate as to mess with my hair in front of you two like this, but I’m still getting use to hair that acts as these pieces do. Though...I must admit, I’m still unsure as to why I even _have_ these in the first place. I would never chose to have my hair styled in such an unreasonable way! It’s ridiculous!” He ended his passionate declaration with a much less passionate and much more casual shrug, almost like he was asking _them_ if they had any ideas for the sudden change to his hairstyle.

Unfortunately, both Naegi and Kirigiri had a pretty good idea of the cause. Well, _Naegi_ did; he just assumed Kirigiri did as well.

When they had woken up together in the bathhouse—Naegi seated in a massage chair with his hands carefully placed on his knees like the day he’d died, Ishimaru collapsed on the ground with his arms and legs sprawled at awkward angles like the day _he’d_ died—Naegi had, understandably, freaked out.

It’d felt as if he’d just awoken in a nightmare made of memories, like Yamada’s bloodied corpse ( _fakeitwasafakeafake_ ) had just been found in the nurse’s office and Ishimaru had been the next victim ( _thefirsthewasthefirstvictim_ ) but everything was _wrong_ ; this wasn’t the physic storeroom, the puddle of blood was gone, Justice Hammer 3 was gone, Naegi himself was also dead, executed under a damn trash compactor, and everything was so so _wrong_. Still, he’d felt deranged enough at the time to think that there was a _chance_ , slim at it was, that he could wake Ishimaru from the bed of death.

And, well, then it became more than just a chance. It had become reality.

Whenever Naegi looked back to the moment when Ishimaru had mumbled and turned over onto his back—discombobulated, but no worse for wear—to look up at Naegi in pure confusion, Naegi had thought it was a miracle, a work of the _divine_. That _Fate itself_ had handed him the key to revive his friends and retrieve them from their early and unfair graves, to _save them_ from their deaths. He understood, after the couple hours of total confusion and heavy emotions that had ensued afterwards, that Ishimaru had simply been revived by Enoshima like the rest of the students in his class. It was still a nice thought though, saved in the back of his mind; that he could have the abilities to save his friends like that.

The conversation that followed their revivals was strange, as it mostly consisted of both boys pointing out the physical changes of the other and the consequential worry or confusion over said alterations. Ishimaru’s new patch of stark white hair was the largest cause of alarm on his end. He was frantic over how it caused him to look unprofessional and—in his own words—like a childish hooligan, and Naegi was only able to stop his laughter at Ishimaru’s embarrassed requests. Naegi’s own differences took a few moments longer to spot, between Ishimaru’s panic and the lack of mirrors in their immediate location, but eventually, and to Naegi’s later dismay, both were able to spot them.

It wasn’t that he was _self-conscious_ about his height, but. Well.

Naegi had never been the tallest of his age group by any measurement. Being short wasn't anything new to him, but still. Losing another two inches wasn’t something he’d been exactly _excited_ about. From _5’3”_ to almost _5’1”_ was a pretty big drop, and one he’d hoped the others wouldn’t notice for quite a while. Not to mention how his hair had essentially been _smooshed_ from its usual fluffy state and his ahoge was almost completely gone, neither of which really helped with the height problem.

But he _definitely_ wasn’t self-conscious about it. Not at all. Just a little displeased about the change, that was all there was to it.

Still, despite Naegi’s absolute opposite of self-consciousness about his height and hair, his changes made sense. He’d been _smashed_ _to death_ sitting in an upright position, there was at least a little bit of logic in the idea that he’d become shorter and his hair would lose a portion of it's innate volume because of it. Ishimaru’s 'changes' didn’t share that same possible logic. Yes, if one considered his ‘Ishida’ faze then there was a chance it related to that, but his hair had somehow reverted back to its original black when Ishimaru’s body had been discovered.

Why had a single section of his hair become white again upon his revival? The location wasn’t even associated with where he’d been attacked! It felt almost _random_ , as if Ishimaru’s apparent scars in relation to his death didn’t match it, while those on their other classmates such as Celestia did. Well, as far as Naegi could tell.

“I, uhm,” Naegi averted his eyes, scanning the snack table as casually as he could. Lying had never been one of his strong suits. “I still can’t figure it out, Ishimaru-kun.” Kirigiri shot him a suspicious look at the lie, but didn’t comment, and Naegi almost sighed in relief.

“Yeah, well _whatever_. _I’m_ convinced that dame did it herself just to fuck with ‘im.”

Ishimaru sighed as Oowada came over from the snack table, his plate one chip away from an avalanche. It sounded as if they’d been over this particular subject before. “Then why is Kuwata-kun’s hair not shaved down to the style he explicitly stated he dislikes? Why is your’s not cut to a short length that would make your pompadour impossible, Kyoudai? It doesn’t make sense for Enoshima-san to single me out like that.”

“Perhaps we should go back to what you were saying about the doors.” Kirigiri cut in, reeling the conversation back under her control just as Oowada opened his mouth to reply. “You mentioned you spent the hour outside the gymnasium?”

Ishimaru perked up. He nodded towards Oowada, who grumpily munched on a handful of potato chips. “Yes! You see, we had decided to spend time together during our given hour to further reunite and strengthen our bond of friendship! Kyoudai wished to visit the third floor while we waited, so he would be able to see the offered activities there, but _I_ was curious as to why we’d been forbidden to enter the gymnasium.  Thus, Mondo and I spent our hour’s duration inside the trophy room!”

“And Enoshima-san didn’t attempt to make you leave?”

“No way, she was fuckin’ _pissed_ we were in there!” Oowada interjected through a mouthful of chips; Ishimaru sent him a frown, his disapproval obvious. “Kept poppin’ up on the screens in there to tell us to fuck off, even sent in Monodick to force us out. Kiyo pointed out that she didn’t make it against the rules, and she had to back off.” He smirked, canines out. “I stayed around to keep screwin’ with ‘er.”

“Manners.” Ishimaru quipped as he reached over to brush some of the crumbs from the other’s shirt.

Oowada simply shrugged and muttered a response under his breath, one that Naegi was unable to catch, then continued to munch on his mountain of snacks. Had he been speaking to anyone else, Naegi was positive Ishimaru wouldn’t have rolled his eyes so fondly.

“Enoshima-san never physically appeared before you, only behind a screen, and sent a Monokuma to send the both of you away.” Kirigiri restated, as if she wanted to see whether she’d gathered any information wrong. Strange. Kirigiri was usually so confident — she never double-checked herself. “Is that correct?”

Oowada shrugged again. “Pretty much.”

“Could you see the room behind her when she contacted you?”

“It was the same crap she had earlier, all those blue screens.” Oowada glanced over to Ishimaru, just to check, and continued with renewed confidence when the other didn’t speak up to contradict him but rather nodded in approval. “But yeah, those screens were back. Couldn't see shit through all of that.”

Naegi looked between the three of them. “So you’re saying no one came in or out? The _entire_ time?”

With a grimace, Ishimaru nodded. “Correct, not a single person entered or exited. Kyoudai and myself were the first to enter the gymnasium due to being the closest to the doors once the bell sounded, though Monokuma seemed to be waiting for us, closer towards the stage. He...or, I suppose, she...? Well, _Monokuma_ refused to speak to us, no matter the methods we tried. Short of physical violence, of course.” Ishimaru stole a chip from Oowada’s plate with a pensive expression— _“Kiyo! What the hell!”_ —and nibbled at its edge as he seemed to reflect. “I cannot exactly recall, but I don’t believe I heard any particular noises from the gymnasium that could be associated with setting up a party. Though, I was speaking to Kyoudai for most of the hour, so it’s possible I just hadn’t payed enough attention to my surroundings.”

“And you, Oowada-kun?”

“Eh, I didn’t hear nothin’ either.” He paused. “Well, the AC shut off for a bit at the beginning and end, but its probably just Enoshima’s shitty maintenance.”

He smiled at them. “That’s perfect, guys!” Naegi clapped his hands once, almost enthused. It felt like he was in the midst of an investigation again—a feeling he really shouldn’t have been so excited about—and just the thought got his blood pumping anyway. “Everything you’ve told us has been a lot of help in and of itself. I’m actually surprised you thought to do this, Ishimaru-kun!”

Ishimaru returned the grin. “Yes, well, I still remember our fledgling investigations, followed by our later explorations of the opened floors! If there’s anything I’ve learned by observing both Kirigiri-kun and your own abilities in deduction, it is that even the smallest details can lead to the largest discoveries!” Ishimaru gave off a slight laugh as Naegi’s cheeks turned a little pink. He wasn’t _that_ great of a detective, it was usually just Kirigiri who figured everything out. “It was an opportunity to help the group that I could not ignore!” He declared.

Kirigiri's lips twitched, a small movement that Naegi had become familiar with over their near month together — the corner of her mouth peaked up every so slightly, _halted_ almost, and her lavender eyes crinkled in the corners.

Catching that particular look on her face, Naegi nearly started to grin until his cheeks hurt. Over the course of their near month together Naegi had come to recognize that whenever Kirigiri was either too happy with herself or with what someone else had said to keep a hold of her concrete cool expression, she would slip into this particular expression. It was her own special way of attempting not to smile when she _really_ wanted to. It had taken Naegi quite a while to be able to spot it, especially on a regular basis as opposed to just every once and a while, but he’d eventually started to pick up on the face during those rare moments when she wore it. He didn't dare mention it though. It was such a good look on her, he didn't want to scare her almost-smile away.

“That’s all we needed to know. We’ll let you two be now.” Kirigiri stated with a sharp turn away from them, like she was embarrassed that one of the other boys might be able to catch her expression, and Naegi took it as his unsubtle cue to follow her out.

Then, without any sort of precedent, Kirigiri stopped, mid-step even. She looked out of the corner of her eyes at Oowada and Ishimaru, almost like she was wary of giving them her particular brand of direct eye contact.

“And,” Kirigiri took a breath while the pair redirected their attention back towards her, obviously surprised at being addressed again once she had made it clear there was no other information she needed from them. Naegi could sympathize, as he too was confused. “Ishimaru-kun, Oowada-kun, I...I wish to thank you both for your efforts and cooperation.” She said, voice edging dangerously close to _uncomfortable_.

Oowada stilled, his eyes narrowed in obvious suspicion as he looked to be weighing the sincerity of her thanks, while Ishimaru had no such reserves, waving goodbye enthusiastically.

“You are very much welcome, Kirigiri-kun! Goodbye!”

With that apparently finished, Kirigiri had no hesitations about essentially _speeding_ away from the door. Her steps were much quicker than he thought anyone in shoes like her’s should have been able to achieve, and, distantly reminded of his own mother's amazing ability to rush around the house in heels when she was running late for work, he was forced to jog rather briskly to catch her by the room’s center pyramid. Naegi swiped up the first sleeping bag his hand made contact with, which happened to be one of the few whites that remained, while Kirigiri swept a black that had been balanced precariously at the top.

He offered an uneasy grin once he’d caught her attention, noting the awkward tension in her shoulders as she looked at him. “Uhm, Kirigiri-san? What was that?” Naegi almost winced at his tactless wording, but it was a little too late to reiterate what he meant.

Kirigiri looked down, face flushing just a tad, and tried her best to look busy as she repositioned her sleeping bag in her arms.

“Well?” Naegi pressed with a joking nudge to her arm, hoping his attempt to be joking would alleviate some of the tension in her shoulders. She shook her head with a sigh, and Naegi would have been offended at how her tone matched that of a tired parent if it hadn’t been a sigh of defeat.

“Over the past month, I’ve come to realize that being... _unfriendly_ , so to say, will not assist me in working with our classmates. You have made friends with most everyone here Naegi-kun, and they look to you for assistance and guidance. Most are willing to tell you close to anything you ask of them, if put in the right situation.” She made something close to a face. “Surprisingly, it seems quite advantageous.”  

“H-Hold on!” Naegi shook his head, rapid. “I wouldn’t say anyone here would tell an- _anything_ , I-I mean that’s ridiculous!” Naegi’s face flushed red, similar to how it had at Ishimaru’s compliment. Everyone was giving him _way_ too much credit for trying to be a _decent human being_. “I’m just nice to people! That’s all!”

Kirigiri stared him down, her face composed once again as the subject shifted further from her. “This is a useless dispute. Even Ikusaba-san, who has only just joined us as her actual self, has already begun to cling to you. If you could see your own relationships objectively, you would admit that I am right.”

Yes, Ikusaba had quickly become someone that Naegi would refer to as a friend and, yes, she seemed to like staying closer to him than their other classmates, but that was only because he’d reached out to her. Maizono had too—well, _technically_ she'd reached out, Naegi _had_ been the one to prompt her to do so in tandem with himself —and he could say with confidence the two were pretty decent friends after their single, brief hour together. Maybe once the dust had settled, Oogami would take Ikusaba as a sparring partner; both had talents that fit that particular mold, and Oogami _had_ made occasional comments on the lack of a good challenge in the school. An Ultimate Soldier sounded like a pretty good ‘challenge’ to Naegi. _Or_ , perhaps Fukawa would take the opportunity to make her first real female friend, what with Togami’s dedication to ignore her more than was usual, even for the fickle heir.

Kirigiri, however, didn’t seem to care much for his interruption and continued onward, running right over his internal monologue. “Your friendliness had been one of your strongest advantages during both daily life and trials, Naegi-kun.” She made a slight frown. “I’m aware that I will be unable to keep myself open emotionally to others to the same degree that you are, but I have come to the conclusion that even smaller attempts on my behalf to befriend them will be... _beneficial_. Gratitude and simple pleasantries should suffice. I do wish for our group to escape alive, and I feel I may have failed to properly portray this wish to them. I believe that to some of our classmates I’ve become a symbol of untruthfulness and suspicion, to the point that they are more so willing to trust Monokuma then myself.”

Her distinct tone of disappointment wasn’t absent come the end of her admission; Naegi could understand the sentiment, though. How could he not? The image of their four faces was seared into his mind—closed off, disgusted, scared, and _betrayed_ ; Sakura-chan gave her _**life** _ for this and you just _**threw that away**_ , how _**could** _ you Naegi—as they voted, judging and condemning and _sentencing_ , and then he was being dragged to his death ( _thegroundshookshookshook_ ) and the trash compactor was coming _closer_ , and _closer_ —

“I-I get it, Kirigiri-san. You wanna try and play nice with everyone, ye-yeah?” The jab fell flat, and his chest was just a little too constricted to be comfortable. For the first time in a while his bones started to ache and his head pound.

Be it out of respect or dismissal, Kirigiri didn’t look at him as he slowed his breath back to regular speeds. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” Kirigiri allowed as she unlatched the sleeping bags’ strap to compress it tighter. “Either way, it’s become clear that absolute teamwork will be necessary to escape from this school. Of us all, you seem to be the only one who had whole-heartedly held onto that hope; I must admit I had discarded the idea soon after the first murder. Though, now, I...I think I could find it in myself to support the idea again.”

And Naegi couldn’t help himself as he _laughed_ , still breathless, absolutely _breathless_ , because it was such a hard hit _relief_ to hear those words from her. Kirigiri had said she cared and thought of their classmates as friends, even if it was in her own hesitant way, and that such _so much_ from her. In fact, when he thought on it, that had been the second time that day that Kirigiri had spoken to him, from the heart and not the brain, and Naegi felt like he had enough gall to say he was proud of her.

Kirigiri had come so far from the—to be honest—human gargoyle he’d met one month prior; she was practically a new person!

The loud, obviously fake retching from behind them made Naegi jump, because _Bang, Thud, **BangThud** , loud noises behind you are bad so so bad_, but Kirigiri just cleared her expression and sent back a passive frown. Fukawa bit her lip in response, eyes concentrated off to the side as if she regretted the decision, while Naegi tried his best to ignore his hands as they shook to the slow, halting rhythm echoing in his head.

Kirigiri regarded her with even and narrowed eyes. “Did you need us to move out of the way?”

So Fukawa was back again; it appeared Genocider had finally switched out. Well then.

Fukawa clutched her hands over her chest as usual, her regular scowl present as well. “An-And get one of th-those _infected_ sleeping bags that you two have been c- _canoodling_ all over?” Fukawa spat, her face scrunched up in disgust. After a moment of letting her eyes dart between them, she took a step backwards. “No thank you! I’d hate to ge-get one of y-your _disgusting_ _diseases_!”

“You—” His face turned red at her words. “You’re assuming the wrong thing, Fukawa-san! I-I mean, Kirigiri-san and I were only _talking_!” Naegi insisted, his arms jerked back and forth to motion between them that probably looked incredibly awkward.

It was like those couple days when Kirigiri had refused to speak to him—for keeping what he had seen between Oogami and Monokuma, which could have caused a terrible divide between the group over miscommunication, a secret—all over again, when those that remained had spent most of their time giving him advice on how to " _fix_ " their relationship. Why did everyone just assume they were into each other? Did anyone realize how taxing it was just to be _friends_ with her? Naegi loved Kirigiri and all her little quirks and faults, but he loved her the same as he loved everyone else — like a _friend_.

And even if he did have any sort of romantic feelings for her—or _anyone else_ , for that matter—he’d really rather put it off until they’d escaped the _murder school_ they were still stuck in. Romance wasn’t very high on his to-do list at the moment.

“Then I would suggest you get your sleeping bag from the pile’s other side, if it bothers you so much.” Kirigiri waved a hand to what was left of the pyramid. If her expression was anything to go by, she’d understood Fukawa’s insinuations as well, but didn’t care all too much for the implied embarrassment.

Fukawa must of gotten her fun from messing with them, as she obediently scuttled to the opposite side as suggested; she claimed one of the final white bags for herself, with an accompanying mutter of white’s symbolic purity and black’s symbolic evil taint. Naegi waved goodbye as she walked away, sleeping bag clutched pretty possessively to her chest, but, well, he was almost _positive_ she’d ignored him.

The two settled themselves just less than a foot from the center table and pyramid, per Kirigiri’s request. It was the best location for constant surveillance, she’d explained, and they would have a better chance at catching Monokuma if he decided to try something while no one had visuals on him. He was still situated on the stage though, fiddling with his remote and twirling in place, so while Naegi supposed he wasn’t much of a danger to the group at the _moment_ , it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to keep an eye on him. Just to be safe, just in case.

Naegi scanned the room and counted each student who had already arrived, the back of his mind reminding him not to miscount or forget another classmate as he had earlier. _That_ had been embarrassing, and probably pretty offensive to the ones he'd forgotten. Celestia hadn't taken it lightly, at least.

A pair of black unfurled bags were pushed closer to the stage, unoccupied, and Naegi assumed they were Oowada and Ishimaru’s since they were the only two in the room who weren’t with their sleeping bags at the moment. Celestia had placed herself and her black sleeping bag in the furthest back corner she could reach, Yamada’s own white one about eight feet forward. He looked too worried about offending her to move closer and Naegi was sorrowfully reminded of how he’d acted similar to a lost puppy around her down to the very moments of his death; it seemed even cold-blooded betrayal couldn’t change that. Fukawa, despite her confident stride earlier, stood alone and abandoned with her sleeping bag clutched to her stomach almost desperately, eyes cast for her subject of obsession in a move that seemed more of habit than actual want. It was Asahina who noticed her first, and she offered a grin and pat to the ground beside her, where both Oogami and Kuwata were seated along with her — Fukawa huffed in disgust and settled herself down on the spot she stood.

Naegi tried not to sigh. It seemed Fukawa would be as stubborn as ever, no matter the situation.

The central area that Kirigiri and him had claimed was close enough to Oogami, Kuwata, and Asahina that each group could hear the other and Naegi took the opportunity to hop into their conversation whenever he felt the time was right. He wanted to see how they were doing, how they were taking in the situation, and he hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with either three through the earlier chaos. _Yes_ , they’d all shared the cafeteria just an hour beforehand, but Naegi hadn’t seriously involved them into his conversation with Ikusaba and Maizono, having decided to leave the two reunited friends and their crippled cohort be while they talked.

It was an odd group, in all honestly, with little in common besides a connection to athletics, but he surmised Asahina was too nice to leave a follow friend in need immobile when she was capable to help; from what he could gather both Asahina and Kuwata had woken up together in the cafeteria, after all.

Kuwata, present time, was stretched out across his own white sleeping bag, his bruised and multicolored arms exposed due to the removal of his jacket. Shortly after sitting him down Asahina had snatched it off of him and, in combination with her own track jacket as the base, created a pillow to keep his head elevated.

Leon Kuwata. Now _there_ was someone Naegi had never properly gotten the chance to befriend. Well.

His first three days at Hope’s Peak had practically  _revolved_ around Maizono, who wasn't only from his old middle school but had already known his name. She’d also been the most approachable person on the campus _by far_ , despite her career as an idol. And Kuwata? Well. He’d come off as a skirt-chaser, a braggart, and just overall the kind of guy Naegi could never feel comfortable around. But _then_ Naegi had heard him comment on how creepy it was when old drunken men hit on teenage girls at one of their breakfasts. But  _then_ he’d watched him bawl and beg for forgiveness as he recounted the tale in which he was cornered like an animal and accidentally murdered Naegi’s closest friend after she’d charged at him a _second_ time.

Naegi didn’t want to look at him like he was some simple archetype after that, and, really, he had decided _wouldn’t_ quite a while ago. It wasn’t fair to him; it wasn’t a fair service to the person Kuwata _was_. Naegi had been wrong to assume Kuwata was as baseless and shallow as he’d first thought and, despite the thought Naegi has put into the other’s memory since his original death, Kuwata had been executed too soon for Naegi to fully replace his assumptions.

And as Naegi tried his best to reassess the other—truthfully and full heartedly _tried_ —he realized it would be marginally _easier_ if Kuwata would let him.

As long as the conversation was kept securely in a _happier_ place Asahina had no complaints about carrying the bulk of it, and Oogami would occasionally input her own opinion on the matter, and Kirigiri seemed content with her silence, but Kuwata _would not stop talking_. He cracked jokes—bad ones, _cheesy_ ones—whenever the conversation lulled for even the shortest beat, he egged Asahina to expand on her stories, and overall he made it clear he had to be deep in the midst of a conversation every waking moment.

It was near _impossible_ to pull his attention away from Asahina’s rapid fire tales of swim meets and track events because Kuwata refused to let himself be isolated. Even when Asahina left for a couple minutes to attempt to bully Fukawa into their little circle, armed with comments of how lonely she looked and how they wanted her around, _honest_ , Kuwata immediately whined to Oogami of how uncomfortable his neck was before Naegi could even take a breath to _speak_.

Oogami shrugged unassumingly and began to remove both Asahina and Kuwata’s plates of snacks that she’d kept balanced on her lap—to avoid someone stepping on them or tipping them over, she had told them—and Naegi jerked to his feet. “I can do it!” He insisted as he shuffled across the gap between both groups on his knees.

Kuwata’s eyes went wide and his attempt to shake his head negative resulted in nothing more than a loud _pop_ and a series of painful groans. “ _Argh_ ,” he hissed, and leaned as far from Naegi’s hands as possible. “ _Shit_.”

With a stern face, Oogami shooed Naegi back, much to his displeasure. “I have this under control, Naegi.” Oogami assured him. “Though your offer is very much appreciated, I suggest you back off for a moment.”

Hands fixed, she adjusted the jacket-pillow in slower movements, and used each gasp of pain and sigh of relief in tandem as well as Kuwata’s occasional intone of, “Move it up a little!” or “Can you tilt my head to the left?”. Naegi did his best to assist and helped readjust Kuwata’s arms; first extending them by his sides, and, when that caused a frown and a sharp “ _Watch it!_ ” from him, next readjusting them to lie half across his torso.

And then, well. What happened next wasn’t the _strangest_ thing to occur today.

Hagakure burst through the doors, dressed up to the literal nines. Not only was he dressed in a _onesie_ , but he was dressed in a _canary yellow onesie_ , covered with little cartoon carrots and bunnies that poked out of upturned top hats. His hair tugged back and forced into a massive ponytail by a single horribly strained elastic band of some sort—the _hell_ , was that an actual _rubber band_ —and he was out-of-breath, as if he’d just ran for his life.

At his classmate's dramatic entrance, Yamada scrambled to his feet and crept closer, watching as Hagakure leaned his head down and rested his hands on his knees. “Hagakure-kun?” He made a short movement with his hand that looked like recognition, and Yamada continued, “Do...uhm, do you want something to...drink?”

Hagakure made a noise between his heavy gasps that sort of, kind of, _almost_ sounded like a yes. Yamada stumbled over himself as he ran to the drink tables.

Asahina had already abandoned her attempts to physically persuade Fukawa into joining their group and made her way to Hagakure’s side before Yamada was finally able to return with a solo cup filled with the offered fruit punch. She gave him a light sock in the arm as he chugged the drink, nearly sending him gagging as it tried to go down the wrong pipe. “What’s the big idea? You’re freaking out already and everyone's not even here yet.”

“I—” _gasp_ “—slept through the—” _gasp_ “— _occult_ —” _gasp_ “—nap alarm.”

Asahina raised an eyebrow at him, her lips curled ever so slightly into an amused smile. “Wow.”

Hagakure groaned and tipped his cup back again, like he wanted to coax as much of the punch from it as possible. “I ran.” He breathed. With slow movements, Hagakure lifted his head from his torso and scanned the room; his eyes immediately tripled in size. “Gu-G- _Guys_!

“Why, yes?” Celestia raised an eyebrow, very much unimpressed with his usual theatrics. “Is something the matter?”

From Celestia seated on the floor to his left, her aura calm, over to Ishimaru and Oowada on their feet to his right, the former confused and the latter quickly turning annoyed, Hagakure took in the room with an expression of pure panic. He made of sound of total horror — _exaggerated_ horror, yes, but still _honest_ horror. “Oh guys,” Hagakure almost sounded sorrowful. “Guys guys _guys_ , what have you _done_? Did you all just _want_ to get executed!?”

Monokuma’s head popped out from underneath the center table and knocked into the leg. A couple of the sleeping bags that had yet to be taken jostled in place while two rolled off and onto the ground. “Did someone say _execute_?” He practically sang, his usual grin even more excited than usual. With quite some difficulty, Monokuma crawled out from under the table on his stomach, his short tail wiggling back and forth as far as it could manage like a dog's.

Naegi tried his hardest not to wonder just how the bear had been able to sneak by both his and Kirigiri's attention to hide under a table, but after a few seconds of effort he decided it wasn't worth the brain power it cost to figure out. Instead, he focused his attention on the remote that Monokuma no longer possessed. It took a beat longer than it probably should have, but he was finally able to spot it on the edge of the stage, abandoned.

When he finally looked back, Monokuma had already danced his way over to Hagakure, Yamada, and Asahina. None of the three looked to pleased about it.

Hagakure yelped as Monokuma tugged on his pant leg, almost falling over in his attempt to stumble further back. “Uh, nope. Nopity nope nope, you’re gonna get away from me right now, you psycho bear of mass feminine destruction!” He shook the bear of his leg with a final kick and winced, eyes squeezed closed. “ _I did not call you here!_ ” Hagakure shouted, louder than was actually necessary in their enclosed, echoing gym.

Oddly enough, Monokuma didn’t seem to mind being kicked away like a worthless toy. He just waggled a clawed paw at him and chortled. “You can’t trick me! I heard you say it, that golden word! You said _execute_ — no one can fool these adorable ears. They’ve been finely tuned by Mother Nature herself!” He boasted with a confident nod.

“...Did you just...?” Hagakure gaped at him, momentarily speechless, “Did you just _mock me_? From, from earlier?” He threw his head back—also reminiscent of their earlier conversation with Monokuma—and groaned. “That’s _it_! I’ve past my limit here, people! All my friends are gonna get _executed_  all because I’m the only person who can follow rules, and the _bear just made fun of me_. I hope you’re happy Enoshima-chi! It’s come down to this!” Hagakure accused, and actually dared to reach back down and poke Monokuma’s red eye to finish his rant, like a cherry on top.

That was probably a mistake, Naegi reasoned; even Sakura winced.

The room’s thermostat must have tied to Monokuma's mood, because when he went silent the temperature of the room plunged to absolute zero. Everything and everyone in the room went _very_ still, and, after a moment, Hagakure withdrew a few steps backwards. IHe must have realized just what he’d done, as his skin went a good four shades paler. No one breathed.

“Let it be known that if you— _ever_ —do that again,” Monokuma began with a slow voice, volume rising with every word, “I _will_ be responsible for what happens to that hand of yours. And it won’t be _pretty_.”

Naegi took that as his cue to _do something_ ; Hagakure looked a second away from keeling over at the rate their conversation was going and he would really rather step in before that happened. “So, uh, Hagakure-kun, what exactly are we being, well, _executed_ for?” Naegi thought it was a fair enough question, and most everyone in the room seemed to feel the similar.

It was unlikely anyone had broken any of Enoshima’s requirements, even by pure _chance_. Both Oowada and Ishimaru had, in essence, _guarded_ the gymnasium’s single entrance for the entire hour and Naegi honestly doubted someone would have been able to make their way past them. There hadn’t been any other requirements that he could think of, though he was still was wondering if that comment about fixing ‘squandered relationships’ was meant to be a regulation. Regardless, most people had spent their hour with others. What could possibly have Hagakure so panicked that he was convinced they’d just sentenced themselves to death? It felt a little, well. _Extreme_.

With his confidence seemingly returned, Hagakure motioned towards himself and then to the closest available person — Togami, surprisingly enough, who looked as if he’d been attempting to slip inside and looked _very_ unhappy to be pointed out to the group. Across the room, Fukawa perked in her seat. “Not _one_ of you have your pj's on!” He exclaimed.

There was a beat of silence, and Naegi tried _extremely_ hard to refrain from slapping his forehead in pure, exasperated disbelief.

Then Monokuma smiled, then he grinned, then he laughed. “Are you _brain dead_ or somethin’?” Monokuma guffawed through his paws. His small body shook with laughter. “Why would I execute anyone for _that_?”

Asahina huffed. “I can’t believe I’m about to agree with the bear, but here I am, agreeing with the damn bear.” The look she shot Hagakure was nothing short of betrayed while, in comparison, Oowada had a look on his face that insinuated he only needed _one_ more near-suicidal statement on Hagakure’s part before he was gonna make his way over there to share his own _opinions_. And Naegi was almost positive, if past experience said anything, he wouldn't be opt for _words_.

“Wait, but—” Hagakure looked from Asahina to Yamada. When he found no support in either of their expressions, branched out around the room. “This is a sleepover!” He insisted. “You’re supposed to wear pajamas to sleepovers!”

Ishimaru made a slight sound of distress, face twisting. “Though I do believe that is part of a proper sleepover protocol, I do not think it’s such a vital factor that we should _die_!” His voice became just a tinge more panicked with each word, then he paused for a moment and added in a lower voice, “Not that I have ever personally attended a sleepover.”

Togami sighed and strode past without a single glance back, right towards the center table. He snatched a white bag and shoved it under his arm. “Another night of idiocy it is, then.” He deadpanned as he passed.

Upset, Hagakure gave his onesie an anxious tug and watched as the bunnies’ faces warped. It was definitely a eye-catching choice of sleepwear. Naegi almost wanted to ask where he’d found it. “People wear pajamas at sleepovers,” Hagakure continued, voice losing steam as he struggled to keep up the debate. He glanced worryingly side to side. “That’s, like, a total given.”

“So am I executing the bastards who showed up unprepared or what? You can’t tempt me with the promise of executions just to pull the line back last minute! I want that tuna! I’ll _bite_ for it!”

Hagakure perked up. “ _Yes_!” He yelled, relieved.

Yamada jumped back. “ _No_!” He yelled, worried.

“ _Dude_ , what the _hell_? What are you trying to do, fuck us all over _!?_ ” Kuwata snapped, his torso and arms popping and creaking as he pushed himself up to communicate his anger at Hagakure through direct eye contact. Naegi was just a second behind Oogami as they both moved to support his back, and he tried not to smile when neither stopped him. “Do you _want_ us to all die?”

Oowada was now mere moments from eruption, to the point that Ishimaru reached over to set a hand on his arm. His fists clenched bone white and his teeth ground together almost audibly, his anger rising with every word leaving Hagakure's mouth. Then, Oowada's hands lowered and his shoulders slumped, expression closing off.  “Yeah,” he muttered, voice muted. Ishimaru blinked at him. “What he said.”

Monokuma tapped a claw to his chin, pensive and with a touch of teasing, before he shook his head. “I don’t know, Hagaichi. I don’t think I ever said anything about a dress code.” Monokuma shrugged, like it couldn’t be helped.

It wasn’t too surprising Hagakure began to _argue_ over it, much the group’s mixture of mutual exasperation and horror. Asahina and Yamada rushed to stop him.

Kuwata looked tempted to force himself to his feet and slap a hand over Hagakure’s mouth to halt any more potential damage before Monokuma started taking Hagakure seriously, but all too aware he was unable to do so without proper help. It was Oogami who caught his expression before Kuwata could hurt himself any further and pushed against the wall until she was upright. “I should stop Hagakure before he manages to somehow doom us all.”

Naegi almost offered to join her—he most _certainly_ didn’t want to die again, not if he could help it—then he realized. Asahina had already left, occupied with Hagakure and Monokuma’s argument, and if Oogami left, well, he and Kuwata would have at least a _couple_ minutes alone together. This was the chance he was waiting for!

 _Wait_. Naegi swiveled his head in the direction of his own sleeping bag to look for Kirigiri, to gauge how focused she was on the commotion going on at the entrance, only to find she wasn’t there to start with. A quick scan of the room found her in one of the furthest corners from the doors and, in general, most others in the room, Togami stooped down to speak to her. The conversation was important, that Naegi could tell, but Togami seemed to have complete domination of the topic. Kirigiri gave the occasional nod and short comment, but Togami seemed to be the main instigator.

The literal urge to _cheer_ almost overtook Naegi at the sight of them, but he managed withhold it til it morphed into a polite smile and redirected attention. Togami and Kirigiri, for all their similarities, had the bad habit of allowing most all of their conversations dissolve into arguments, so it was thrilling to see them actually share a _civil_ discussion. It would be a shame to spoil it by getting caught staring at them and instead he directed his attention towards his own target.

Naegi touched Kuwata's shoulder as lightly as possible to catch his attention; he didn’t want to jostle his sensitive bruises if he could help it. Not only would that be a terrible first move to what was hopefully the start of their friendship, Kuwata seemed to really _feel_ his scars. In comparison Celestia was only a little stiffer in her posturing. “Hey, uh, Kuwata-kun? Would you mind if we talked for a minute?”

There was a moment during which Naegi was positive he would be ignored. As it was, Kuwata's head was lolled to the other side and he seemed absorbed in the argument—which had only escalated when both Maizono and Ikusaba appeared _also_ dressed in pajamas, adding fuel to Hagakure’s fire—and Naegi was forced to admit that seemed more interesting than anything _he_ could come up with. That’s why Kuwata’s cooperation, though accompanied by a loud swallow and harsh exhale, was a pleasant surprise. His attention was still split between the commotion and Naegi, but Naegi could live with it. He'd take what he could get.

“You wanna talk?” Kuwata repeated, with an near suspicious tone to his voice. His face had twisted into a scowl, and he seemed to be doing his best to look at Naegi while very much _not_ looking at Naegi.

“Yes!” Naegi enthused, and realized that may have been a _tad_ too loud, what with the couple of glances over in their direction. He sent a sheepish smile as an apology, to both the few who had looked over and Kuwata, before steeling himself. Naegi couldn’t flop this — if he did, Kuwata may refuse to humor him a second time. “Sorry. I—I just wanted to talk with you Kuwata-kun. Get to know you a little better.”

Kuwata’s lips pressed together. “ _Great_. Just go on or whatever, I’ll just sit and listen.” He said and then added, bitter and under his breath, “It’s not like I could get up and _leave_ if I wanted to.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Well. Where should he _start_? Naegi needed something interesting enough to hold Kuwata’s lack of attention but he could tell Kuwata was a little sour right now. It might be best just to clear the air first, make sure he knew there were no hard feelings on Naegi’s side of things.

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. They could move to more sociable topics after the heavy stuff had been swept out of the room.

“Look, Kuwata-kun,” He didn’t, predictably, but Naegi continued. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t care about what happened at that first trial. What happened between you and Maizono-san wasn’t your fault, it isn’t anyone’s fault but Monokuma and the Mastermind. I understand that it was an accident on both sides and that neither of you really—”

Kuwata scoffed, dark. “I still payed for it,” he cut in, and his scowl darkened. “Everyone still decided I was guilty, right? I still got _killed_ for it.” Kuwata’s neck popped as he forced himself to face Naegi, eyes vile with sudden anger. “You let me _die_ for it.”

Oh. _Okay_.

That was an...unexpected reaction, at least. Naegi gulped. He could fix this, he could redirect this back to safer ground. Kuwata was just a little upset and it was _totally_ understandable, but Naegi needed to make sure he wouldn’t stay stuck on the issue. He could still _fix_ this.

“None of us wanted you to die, Kuwata-kun.” He stated as confidentially as he could, focusing on holding his voice steady and sure. Naegi knew that stuttering out reassurances was hardly comforting; he knew _he_ wouldn't be comforted by a motivational speech full of half-pronounced words. “It wasn’t meant to be personal, but you have to remember that if we hadn’t voted for you, the rest of us would have died instead. We weren’t _targeting_ you, Kuwata-kun, you’re our friend. It was just the circumstances.”

“I bet that’s what you say to make yourself feel better.”

Naegi blinked. “Huh?”

“You think no one was _targeting_ me _?_ That it was all just the fucking ‘circumstances’ or whatever? _Ha_.” It wasn’t a laugh, it was just a caustic sound from the depths of Kuwata’s throat that made Naegi’s stomach churn. “Back when _you_ were up on the chopping block, back when I had a _chance_ to make it out by the skin of my fucking teeth, those bastards were out for your _blood_. No reservations, sympathy, or even goddamn _pity_! No _nothing_! Didn’t you see it? As long as it wasn’t them dead in a ditch, no one cared _who_ it was! So why would there be any more sympathy for me than you? I killed her, I stabbed her in the fucking stomach with her own knife and tried to cover my ass! And in the end that was all that mattered and that’s who I _was_ ; I was the _guilty_ or the _blackened_ or the _killer_ , or whatever other hellish thing they could come up with!”

Naegi mentally stumbled, caught by the sudden explosion. The other’s tone had already rose past what was probably acceptable for such an occupied space, and more than a couple people had redirected their attention from Hagakure’s hapless argument to Kuwata’s temperamental rant. Even Kirigiri and Togami’s interest looked to be piqued.

He hoped they would be polite enough to look away; so much attention while Kuwata was so emotionally shaken would probably bring about some serious embarrassment later.

“I told you everything! Fucking Maizono went and jumped me with a _knife_ , what the hell was I supposed to do? Fall over and just die? It was _all her fault_ and I _told you that_. A goddamn accident! I _begged_ on my goddamn _hands and knees_ to you assholes, but the hell if that mattered _Naegi_ , 'cause _you_ went and just killed me. _Pelted to death. With fucking. Baseballs._ ” He glowered down at his own body with such hatred it could bruise. “And now I’m alive again, right? _Ha_. I’m weak as shit. I’m tired as shit. I can’t walk on my own, hell, I can barely _move_ on my own! Everything always hurts and I can’t do a damn thing to fix myself. Baseball is out, I’ll never be able to play again, and I couldn’t move my fucking useless fingers to play a guitar if my life _depended_ on it. I’m all alive again and shit, but my life is _over_!” Kuwata almost looked on the verge of tears, both of wrath and depression. “I just wanted to _live_ — was that too fucking much to ask, _Naegi_?”

“K-Kuwata-kun!” Naegi stared at him, eyes wide. _Man_ , he felt absolutely _horrific_. How could Kuwata misunderstand the situation to such an extreme? “Yo-You’ve got it all wrong Kuwata-kun, it was _Monokuma_ who killed you, not me a-and not anyone else either; it was all Enoshima-san, who, who manipulated both Maizono-san and yourself! No one’s to blame but her! And, and when we voted for you it wasn’t anything personal or against you, _I_ don’t hold anything against you, I-I want us to be friends! We shouldn’t _resent_ each other, not when we can get along instead!” Naegi tried a smile, hopeful, _so hopeful_.

Kuwata did not smile back.

With another noxious popping noise from his protesting neck, Kuwata turned the other direction with a grunt. It took a moment of effort for his to twist the rest of his body in that direction as well. “Yeah, well, you can just go suck it. I’m damn tired,” he sneered with a huff. “My jaw’s sore from talking so much, anyway.”

“Oh.” Naegi said. He felt shaken, but tried his best not to let it show. To keep a brave face. “Uhm, okay, yeah— _uhm_ —sure Kuwata-kun. What — whatever you...well...want.”

Naegi sat there for a while, in place, his eyes focused on the tile pattern beneath his feet. He didn’t push Kuwata to talk with him again. Kuwata returned the favor, making the air awkward when neither left in the aftermath, but Naegi couldn’t quite gather the willpower to return to his and Kirigiri’s sleeping bags.

His mind couldn’t accept it, couldn't accept that their conversation had gone down such a terrible path. Kuwata had gotten a lot off his chest, that much was obvious, and while Naegi was glad he’d probably feel less weighed by his feelings on the situation he wasn’t glad to hear what exactly those feelings were.

They were supposed to be  _friends_. Or at minimum, they were supposed to _try_. That's what classmates did, it just made sense.

But instead Kuwata was angry—nay, _furious_ —with him? All he had done was solve Maizono’s murder, the _right thing to do_. Naegi could tell Kuwata resented her too, for her part in her murder and for her part in _his_. Though he hated when people were unable to get along, Naegi understood where Kuwata stood on the issue between his victim and himself. But why Naegi? All he had done at that trial was uncover the truth; he hadn’t _condemned_ him, at least, not _really_ , and it certainly had _not_ been out of spite or anger. It had been Enoshima who'd dragged him to his death, who'd orchestrated the entire series of events.

His role in the trial had been to protect the innocent, not to harm the guilty. That’s just how Enoshima had made each class trial to be; it wasn’t his choice or will. Kuwata just didn’t want to understand. He just wasn’t thinking of how everyone else would have—

 _Thinking_. He wasn’t _thinking_. That was it. Naegi could still remember what had been Togami’s favorite phrase, his essential motto throughout their game of survival.

_“It’s idiotic to assume everyone thinks and sees things the way you yourself do, and in a game like this it will get you killed.”_

Togami had certainly never been the _nicest_ about how he delivered the phrase or the quips that followed, and Naegi had never personally taken his advice to heart, but he could see that Togami's words rang true with Kuwata. For Naegi, their first trial was weeks ago, near a _month_ ; for Kuwata, it had literally been _yesterday_. Their internal clocks were both wrong, there was no denying _that_ , but Kuwata’s was even further off base than Naegi’s own. For him, it wasn’t over; it had just _ended_. Kuwata had been given no time to cope, no time to think over his actions and reactions and how he felt, and so he wasn’t over it, he _couldn’t_ be.

And, to Kuwata, the main person who had worked through the clues and solved the case was no other than Naegi himself. He’d been the judge, the jury, and the executioner— _barely_ a day ago, coming from Kuwata's personal perspective—and Naegi was already asking him to _get over it_. To just drop how he felt about the entire situation and ‘ _be friends_ ’ with him, all because Naegi had wanted him to.

Of course Naegi was the one Kuwata was going to blame. He'd proved himself innocent and dashed any hope his classmate could've had of escape. It was Naegi’s fault entirely, for his being caught and for his being executed. Kuwata was still in their earliest mindset, much like Fujisaki had been, that those who voted were _responsible_.

Naegi hadn’t been the one to kill him, it was the Mastermind — he knew and believed that wholeheartedly, but Kuwata didn’t. It was all a matter of perspective. It didn’t matter that he knew, not when Kuwata’s wounds were still so fresh they were still _visible_.

Well. Naegi looked down at the other, curled on his side with the occasional creak and crack when he struggled to shift himself, unable to move himself further from Naegi despite his obvious want to do just so, and he made a decision. Kuwata was mad with him, and he would be for quite a while, but Naegi considered him a friend. He would do everything in his power to help Kuwata with everything that troubled him over his execution, death, and the series of steps that lead up to them both, and perhaps convince Kuwata to think of him as a person he could depend on along the way. He would befriend Leon Kuwata.

The determination that followed, oddly enough, was what urged him to move, to leave Kuwata to his own devices while Asahina and Oogami dragged an unwilling Hagakure from Monokuma and return to his own location of choice. Kirigiri had found her way back as well, bringing along a plate of store-bought sugar cookies to nibble on, and didn’t acknowledge his presence as he sat in turn for scanning the room . She still looked serious, but she and Togami both seemed to still be in possession of all their necessary body parts, so he would count it as a success for them both.

Maizono and Ikusaba had escaped Hagakure’s desperate attempts to have them executed around the same time that Naegi returned, and both welcomed him back. Their own bags had already been set out, creating a quadrant out of the four, and Naegi couldn’t help but notice that he was the only one to have chosen white. Odd. He would have assumed it the more popular color, but, well, apparently not. A quick glance to the central table showed that only one bag remained, a white for the still absent Fujisaki.

“I would have come over here right away, but Hagakure-kun pulled us into some argument with Monokuma over pajamas of all things, and, uhm,” Maizono glanced to the side, lips pressed together. “I heard some of what Kuwata-kun said to you.” She admitted after a moment, voice smaller.

Naegi shifted, uncomfortable. “Oh. You did?” There was no way Maizono would have taken _any_ of that well. He was surprised she looked so composed with how she’d hardly been able to handle simple _kindness_ on his part earlier.

“He was yelling. I think everyone could hear him.” Ikusaba intoned; like him, she looked distinctly uncomfortable. “When he mentioned how he...died...was that, well, true? What he said? I mean, it fits Junko-chan, her ironic spirit, but I didn’t think she could do something like that to one of _you_. Not _any_ of you.” She breathed, subtle and unintrusive. “It sounds brutal and painful and drawn out. Kuwata-kun wouldn’t have actually died until after he’d been pelted and maybe left to hang in place for a while, maybe in a way that would pull his injuries. Junko-chan wouldn’t have whatever it was kill him immediately, or she wouldn’t find it as fun.”

Kirigiri set her half-filled plate to her lap and looked up, catching Ikusaba’s eyes and keeping them. The other girl looked startled. “He was telling the truth.” Kirigiri said.

Ikusaba made a sound, but Naegi couldn’t quite tell what she was trying to convey through it. The soldier looked tempted to break off first, if the twitch in her cheek were any indication, but she persevered until Kirigiri seemed satisfied with whatever she’d seen to direct her attention back to her plate.

Well. That had been weird to witness. And considering the anxious concern radiating off Maizono, he had a feeling she agreed. “Are you alright?” Naegi asked, worried. Ikusaba looked pretty rattled.

It was when Ikusaba forcibly stilled herself afterwards that Naegi even noticed she’d flinched. Her calloused fingers started messing with the edge of her nightgown, slow and self-calming. Silent, Ikusaba examined his face with that overwhelmingly _lost_ look he’d first on her face when they’d properly met a few hours ago.

“I-” Ikusaba let out a frustrated breath, as if she wasn’t used to being forced to explain multifaceted things and needed more time to order her sentences right. “I don’t think she likes me very much.” She finally confessed. “She was looking at me like she was sizing me up.”

Naegi blinked in surprise. “Who, _Kirigiri-san_? Please Ikusaba-san, don’t worry about it. She just isn’t the quickest to trust others, but she’ll warm up to you—well, as much as she warms up to _anybody_ —eventually.” Naegi reassured, letting out a self-deprecating laugh.

Ikusaba shut her eyes, tight like she was trying to will the afterimage of Kirigiri’s stare to leave her memory. Her nightgown bunched between her fingers as she clenched them into fists. “I didn’t like it. I—I don’t being looked at like I’m a criminal.”

Maizono snorted critically. “Honestly, she acts like we’re _all_ criminals here. But I’m biased here Ikusaba-san, since I can’t say I’m that _fond_ of Kirigiri-san either; not after watching her talk down to Naegi-kun like that. He’s not a child for her to lead around, he can make his own decisions without her! Intimidating him into doing what she wants with that cold stare of hers isn’t _choice_ , either.” Bristling, Maizono sent the girl in question a pointed glare filled with righteous annoyance. Kirigiri didn’t even twitch.

Naegi wanted to deny their claims, wanted to tell them about how Kirigiri was brash, yes, but that her heart was in the right place and that was what mattered. As for the people thing — she was _working_ _on it_ , alright, and learning curves were steep. If they knew how far she’d come with her relationships they’d be as proud of her as he was. But Naegi didn’t say any of those things, because they _didn’t_ know how hard Kirigiri was trying and they _didn’t_ understand how hard it was for Kirigiri to be open emotionally with others. He’d already decided to let Maizono and Kirigiri work out whatever was going on between them anyway, so instead of outright defending her he went for something more subtle.

“Kirigiri-san is just a really private person, Maizono-san. And as someone who considers themselves her _friend_ , I trust that she has her reasons for everything she does.” Naegi tried gently.

Maizono shot one last glare, but otherwise let it go. Ikusaba settled into her own particular silence as Monokuma roused on the stage, gaining their class’s attention. Worried that maybe his friend’s feelings had been hurt at Naegi’s admittedly lacking defense, he tried to meet Kirigiri’s eyes, but Kirigiri just bit into a cookie and did another full scan of the gymnasium. Ignored yet unsurprised, Naegi turned towards the stage and hoped that maybe, it would out all on it’s own.

 

 

 

In Hagakure’s opinion, it had been a pretty darn great day so far.

To start if off, he wasn’t _dead_ anymore—a big plus, especially after he’d just _died_ , like, right before he'd woken up not dead—and no one else was either— _another_ pretty great plus, because they’d all been _pretty dead_ too—and everyone was all together again. Really there had only been a couple of snags, like a few people’s rotten attitudes about their deaths and Enoshima’s general existence, but overall? _Pretty great_. Even the sleepover was looking pretty far up. And, _yeah_ , Enoshima had put it together so it was evil in _some_ way or another, but he felt confident. Their class was fifteen strong again and could probably take control of this little shindig and have fun without any of those murder-related complications, no matter _what_ she tried.

And she _would_ try something because it would make no sense for her not to. Another motive, another excuse to kill each other, another trial and execution; Hagakure was _so_ not down for that. It'd been so, so lonely when everyone had died and he would have given his crystal ball away for _free_ to have avoided it the first time. And while his last thoughts had been wanting his friends back, at _no point_ had Hagakure ever requested a repeat of this wacko murder game. That hadn't been part of his wish darn it!

He’d done his best to warn Kirigiri when she’d pulled him aside—like, she had _literally pulled him_ aside, by the collar even; between Oogami and Kirigiri, this was becoming a new trend that he wasn’t really all that down with, and one that he was almost positive would give him a healthy fear of _death via strangulation_ if it kept up—but, considering it was _Kirigiri_ , he had a feeling she hadn’t actually listened. Her main concern had been what'd happened after she died which, _really_ , wasn’t much. Not when she was the third to last to actually die.

The interrogation was in the boy’s bathroom—which really made him wonder if she had _any_ shame, like, whatso _ever_ —and had mostly been in the form of a check-list questionnaire.

 _Asahina was executed?_ Yeah, with sharks. _My corpse was removed?_ I don’t know. _Enoshima revealed herself to you?_ She did. _Enoshima revealed crucial parts of her plan?_ Probably. _Enoshima revealed information about Mukuro Ikusaba?_ A lot actually. _Enoshima mentioned her method of revival?_ Sorta. _Enoshima killed you?_ She shot me.

It was when she got to the big one— _“Is there anything else specifically that you were told? Anything important?”_ —that Hagakure really had fun with it. Young James Bond with dreads was _back_ , all ready to relay that super secret intel and beat up the bad guys. He recited every little detail he could remember, from their two years of memories to that Commodus group Enoshima had mentioned after she shot him. _Everything_ and _anything_. Kirigiri didn’t interrupt him _once_ , just gave little hand motions to tell him to expand on something or to move on, and that in of itself was pretty amazing. Hagakure couldn’t lie — he _liked_ being needed, being _useful_.

Of course, Kirigiri had run off right when he finished to go interview someone else or looked into some other place, but _still_.

Hagakure totally understood, she was a busy detective-ish person; places to be, things to do, people to grill. Personally, Hagakure was in _desperate_ need of a quick cat nap anyway, especially if he expected to make it up all night through a sleepover. The first person to fall asleep was always fair game and he was determined not to let it be him. Maybe Fujisaki or Ishimaru would fall asleep first, but it was _not_ be Yasuhiro Hagakure.

He hadn’t planned on sleeping through all _five_ of his alarms, of course, so the onesie and the hair had been some serious late minute planning, but no one had been executed so that was pretty great. Monokuma—Enoshima, Monokuma, _Enoshima_ , _Monokuma_ , was there even the _difference_ anymore—had been oddly chill. All of his confusion had all been sorted out fine in the end but Hagakure had high tailed it outta there anyway, squeezing himself between Kuwata and the Ogre with a bowl of popcorn that that sneaky devil Asahina needed to stop stealing out of because she had her _own full bowl_ — the night was back on track, _really_.

The only thing Hagakure had left to freak out about was the totally predictable motive Enoshima would pull at any moment. A ‘little visual assistance’ his ass — this was totally a motive for them to all murder each other again. Even _he_ could see it coming, from like _miles_ away, and he was _Hagakure_.

Monokuma, who had plopped his fat behind back on the stage when everyone had went their own way, looked pretty excited for a robot bear. The weird black box he’d grabbed when he sat back on the stage was now being  _cuddled_ to his chest, which was a little weird, really, and he just kept on watching his captive audience. Literal emphasis on _captive_ , because Monokuma/Enoshima was a dick and locked the doors after Fujisaki had finally wandered in. Togami wasn’t super happy with the whole sleepover party in the first place—probably ‘cuz he couldn’t grumble and be reclusive as well in _crowds_ —but he was even _less_  pleased when he tried to do one of his dramatic exits and the door stayed firmly shut.

“Well, my _useless_ students, it looks like everyone’s had plenty’o time to familiarize themselves with each other again, _yeeeah?_ ” Monokuma called out after a while. He wasn’t wrong for once, because almost everyone had been having fun talking together again, Naegi being the exception since he seemed a little more thoughtful than usual, but the reminder of Monokuma's existence put a pretty hard damper on the moment.

“Everyone’s all pumped, right? I mean, why wouldn’t you be! We’ve got loads of spiked punch and almost no paternal supervision, so you kiddies should be bouncing off the walls by the end of the night!” He planted his paws on his hips. “But if I see even a  _smidgen_  of PDA, a Grand Purge is going down in this _very room!_ This is a family-friendly program — don’t test me!”

A couple students made some obviously weirded out faces, but it was Ishimaru who choked on his drink, nearly spitting the whole thing out. “This has  _alcohol_ in it _!?_ ” Ishimaru stared down at his cup like it had betrayed him and Hagakure felt a little sympathy for him. Sitting to his left, Oowada looked torn from laughing his head off or  _comforting_ him.

"Hm..." Maizono made a cute little contemplative hum and swirled her cup around a bit. Whatever punch she hadn’t already chugged splashed around inside, but was no where close to spilling over the edges and onto her lap. “I’ve had spiked punch before and this tastes nothing like it. I’d say it’s clean, Ishimaru-kun.”

Ishimaru's jacked up shoulders slumped in near audible relief. Hagakure wasn't sure how he did it; the poor dude lived in a _murder school_ and still found the time to care about that kinda stuff. “ _Thank goodness_.” Ishimaru sighed.

“Yeah, and not to mention that we most _definitely_ have parental supervision!” Hagakure announced with a grin and hopped to his feet, so it could be a direct challenge. Though he'd vowed to himself not to challenge any more dangerous women, Monokuma was a _robot_ , a _male_ one at that, and the she-demon that controlled him had mocked him first. So he mimicked the bearbot’s sass-filled pose— _ha_ , you’re not the only one who can make fun of people by doing the things they do back at them, take _that_ —and planted his hands on his hips with all the authority of a diva. “ _I’m_ here!”

“What the hell does that mean.” It wasn’t even a question on Kuwata’s part, just an exasperated series of words that he really didn’t need to add. Not when Hagakure was in the middle of totally _schooling_ Enoshima or Monokuma, or _whatever/whoever_.

Fujisaki at least got what he meant, but still blinked in confusion. “I don’t think you’re old enough to be anyone here’s parent, even if you are the oldest.”

“H-He’s _not_.” Fukawa grumbled. "And n-neither of my moms, nor my dad, would ever associate with someone so r- _ridiculous_ anyway."

“I said ' _almost'_.” Monokuma clarified, voice lighter than he’d expected it to be. He placed his paws over his heart—or where it would be if he wasn't a literal cold-blooded killing machine that lacked feelings—and made big teddy bear eyes. _Drats_ , he was playing cute. “Mama Junko will _always_ be here whenever you need her.”

“Yeah, well, _Papa Hagakure_ will always be here to keep you guys safe from your ugly ol’ Mama Junko!” Hagakure countered. He crossed his arms and nodded, pretty confident in the comeback. “All the kids say I’m their favorite. I’m _nicer_.”

“I. Am. Nice.” Monokuma ground, his face an embarrassing tomato red and his claws out. “And _I_. Am _not_. **_UGLY!!!_** " His voice exploded into a high pitched _screech_ , a reverberating howl too shrill for a robot and just a little too ‘raging teenage girl’ for a coincidence.

Hagakure jumped back, kicking over his bowl of popcorn and spilling it all over Kuwata, and clapped his hands over his ears.

Monokuma ground his sharp canine teeth together in a wince-worthy metal-on-metal screeching sound, struggling to compose to himself. Then his expression cleared and he was _grinning_. Oh. Oh no.

“What I was _trying_ to say before your _Father_ here interrupted me—like I was _chopped tuna_ or something, where's the  _respect_ —was that I didn’t bring you damn bastards here for just shits and giggles. Eheheheh _ehe_.” Monokuma sounded a little less mad, but his vocab had shifted into some weird hybrid between the rocker chick, the new Mom personality, and actual Monokuma. Uh, weird. “I want everyone to become that _big happy family_ we had before! Bond, rebuild those torched bridges, all that fun and happy stuff. And, honestly, what better way to bring us all closer than a group movie? I doubt any of _you_ shit-for-brains could of come up with something better!”

Yamada’s hands fiddled around together, and there went his sweat glands again. Impressive as always. “I-I _suppose_ that doesn’t sound t- _too_ bad.” He tried.

Kirigiri kept up her poker face—the poker face of _steel_ was more like it—and shook her head at the very idea. “Don’t bother to trust him; a movie may sound innocent in nature, but rest assured that it is most definitely a trap. What she plans to show us will be no different than any other motive.”

Wait, _wait wait wait_. Hagakure swiveled to look at her, heart racing in his chest. “You _listened_ to me _!?_ ” He exclaimed because, _huh_ , Kirigiri looked like she would rather be  _anywhere else_  than this gym now that he'd mentioned it. “I can't believe it! Back when I said this was going to turn into a motive you actually _listened_ to what I said!” Hagakure wanted to jump in place, or try a cartwheel, or something else equally silly and with the potential cause great spinal injury.

Her expression didn’t look like it’d changed to him, but when Naegi glanced at her face his own almost broke apart, his smile was so big. As one of the longest to live, Hagakure had come to recognize that as the sign that, if Kirigiri had been born a _normal_ person who had emotions a majority of the time, her face would be pulled into a smile so wide it would reach her ears; Hagakure wasn’t exactly sure how smiles could reach people’s ears, it didn’t seem _possible_ , but whatever. It worked for his mental analogy.

“As you’ve had the most personal experience with Enoshima-san and your official time of survival surpasses my own, it’s only logical I would take your assessment of her behavior into account. However, you were not alone in assuming we’ve been led into a trap; I, also, came to that conclusion.”

Hagakure couldn’t help himself, he _cheered_ , actually literally out-loud and about as unashamed as he was most of the time anyway. This was much more deserved though because for the _love of the occult_ , Kirigiri was actually _listening_ to what he'd said even when it looked like she really hadn't, and it was even past that base information she’d originally asked for, so, like, _wow_. It was rare for her to pay attention to anyone’s ideas but Naegi’s and, weirdly enough, Togami’s, and even those times didn’t happen as often as they could’ve. Kirigiri had _listened_ to him.

It was really official — this sleepover was going to be pretty great, Hagakure was sure of it.

“Listen here, _brats_ ,” Monokuma snarled, his spotlight totally stolen. Just rocker chick and Monokuma, then? Huh. “I said you needed to get pumped, not explode in joy. Now don’t be expectin’ some feel good movie of the year shit or a rom com; _this_ piece of modern art is a hardcore example of the horror-mystery genre, with a little- _lot_ -of gore on the side. Kids these days are always clamorin’ for the _real nasty_ stuff, you know, and I happen love you snots so much I so graciously decided to deliver! Try to figure out our plot if you can.” He leaned closer. “All the reviews said it’s a little _grizzly_ , but if you can _bear_ to watch it, it’s a real _killer_.” And the bear pun one,  _of course_.

With one last vengeful growl, Monokuma slammed his paw on _Play_.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a new motive emerges! I hope all this build up to the part I know all of you readers are really waiting for - the first murder, that is - is enjoyable. Rome wasn't built in a day, as the saying goes. Our own extended and revamped plot, new relationships, and personality face-lifts as my sister called it, are right on their way. If two characters that you've been waiting to interact with each other haven't yet, don't worry! The next chapter will be full of relationship building, especially with characters we haven't yet touched on!
> 
> Speaking of improved personalities, please feel free to comment on how we've altered Kirigiri. Neither of us personally liked how she was portrayed in the game, she was much too cold and got on our nerves constantly in her treatment of Naegi, and so we spent a lot of this chapter hammering out our version of the detective that was both the same and different. Did we do her true justice, or does she seem too OOC? Like I said, feel free to tell us.
> 
> Also, murder predictions please! Those won't be answered, for obvious reasons, but go at it anyway! It'd be interesting to see anyone gets it right just by pure chance. We've already decided on these murders long ago, but we'd like to see who looks like they're shaping up to be the first eliminated in Round 2. Or will it be more than one...?  
> ~ Sierra
> 
> ((POSTED ON : 7/27/2015))


	4. Part C : This is Zombieland and We're the Attractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maizono couldn’t deny someone so desperate for anything, not when they thought she was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome one and all! So yeah, the whole consistent schedule thing isn't going to work out, especially seeing how I stupidly promised a chapter in August and it's November. But just know that this story isn't going to abandoned at any rate - we're in too deep already to give up all those hours put into this - so when we inevitably make you guys wait again, just relax and know a chapter will come when it comes. We hope this chapter isn't disappointing despite it being the longest yet.  
> ~Sierra

**DAY 1 NIGHTTIME — ROUND 2**

 

 

Not good, not good, not good — _darn it_. Hagakure hadn’t wanted the stupid bear to get all mad with him, he’d just been trying to stop the motive. Not make it happen faster!

The lights went off row by row, from the back to the front, ‘till the big black screen up front was the last thing anyone could see; then the rest of the lights were off and the room was too dark to see a guy's hand an inch from his face. A couple voices started to shout again between the last light’s delay and shut off, and Hagakure could pick out his friends’ voices all too easy while they panicked and just generally freaked out, and if _that_ wasn’t a show of how much crazy stuff they’d dealt with over the last month, well, then he didn’t know what was.

“ _Ahhg!_ D-Did someone just t- _touch_ me? They did!” There was a crashing racket from Fukawa’s direction as she shouted. “Someone _touched_ m-me!”

Naegi jumped in. “Please calm down, Fukawa-san! You sat all by yourself, remember? No one’s close enough to touch you, even if it was an accident! You’re okay!” He eased, rushing to make her feel better even from their distance. “

“What’s going on?” Yamada asked. The poor guy sounded like he was about to cry, something Hagakure wasn’t sure he wanted to imagine. Yamada’d probably be one of those snotty criers, who were a little gross but you just wanted to hug to make them feel better. “Are we, we going to—” he croaked, just a little ugly, “—to _die_?”

“Monokuma, I must demand you cease this silliness and return the lights! This trick of yours has ceased to humorous the second time!” No one else could sound so confident and in control in such a weird situation as Ishimaru. Pretty amazing, really.

“I didn’t think it was funny the first time.” Maizono confessed somewhere off to Hagakure's left, her voice small and a little hard to catch. Like Yamada, that thick sorta tear-filled sound was there, but Maizono had more of a totally terrified tone to her, which Hagakure could totally relate to.

Where was a table to dive under when he actually needed one?

“ _Dammit_ , what—?” Monokuma swore, followed by a loud crash against wood and then by some on-off thumping against the same whatever it was. “ _You_ — _shitty_ — _thing_ —” There was a scratch, nails on the chalkboard level _painful_. Hagakure winced pretty hard, hands over his ears at it. “You _bear_ ter just fuckin’ work already, dammit—dammit! What total _Pooh_ and—” The thuds continued. “Fuck it, I’m not up for the goddamn bear puns right now.”

“You better find some solution soon.” Togami hissed. “If I must be trapped in this room with these imbeciles it will _not_ be in complete darkness, I can assure you that.”

“Shut the fuck up, _Beauty and the Bear_ , I’m trying, _okay!?_ ”

More of that low thudding kept up, kinda like a little kid was jumping up and down with a temper tantrum, and then by some weird miracle it worked. The screen up front blasted a pale white light, hiking up from just bright enough to see to just bright enough to blind. When Hagakure fixed his vision—but not without some serious blinking, eye rubbing, and internal complaining; not necessarily in that order—he could see the big rectangle Monokuma had been carrying around earlier faceup with Monokuma standing on the center of it, paws on his head and leaning over like he was tired or something. Hagakure figured it was safe to guess that the bear'd been jumping on the thing. Huh.

His totally exaggerated shadow lurched when he wiped his forehead and spread his arms out wide, head thrown back in something sorta like most probably pride. “We are _beary exhausted_.” Monokuma announced. “We swear to our little kiddies that Best Buy will find itself with a most _aggressive_ review on Yelp! Hahah _ahaha_. We only use the epitome of equipment perfection for our wonderful children!"

Hagakure made a face. Why did she keep _doing_ that? They weren't her kids, _honestly_ , he was probably like five years older than her.

The mechanical bear shrunk and slumped down, like he’d just remembered he was tired. He sighed, all depressed like. Wait; the _sad_ one? What the heck. Enoshima was really jumping around today, for whatever reason. “I’d stay and we could all watch together, but I don’t think anyone actually wants me around. I’m no one’s favorite, apparently. But, that’s okay _!_ I-I love you all equally anyway.”

“He isn’t _wrong_.” Kuwata snarked, nose wrinkled.

Like he actually had tears in his eyes, Monokuma rubbed his paws over them before he exploded into another plume of smoke. Hagakure _wanted_ to say something, because if whatever Enoshima had set up could be ‘ruined’ just by Monokuma sticking around it was probably _super duper_ bad. Like, the _worst_. He wasn’t much of a movie guy anyway. But then the speakers were blaring and the screen was turning from white to gray, and it was probably too late to do anything but sit back and try to think of a way to maybe pull some damage control, they would _need_ it.

The middle of the white screen was a circle, made of that classic type film reel that were at the old kind of theater where only silent movies played — the most boring kind of movie if you asked Hagakure. And in the middle of _that_ was the upper half of a cartoon Monokuma braced against the circle’s border with a fake lion’s mane around his head. Speakers exploded with a screechy mechanical sound when the cartoon Mono-Lion tried to roar at them, face a scrunched up to try and be threatening or something, but it died out into a squeak/bark/hiss type _thing_. He looked a little put out when he realized, and leaned against the border with a silent sigh. A little picket sign kinda just appeared in his paw, bright and bold red letters spelling out “ **ROAR** ” with  _way_ too many exclamation points behind it.

Around the top of the reel was “ _A Monokuma and Enoshima Production_ ” in one of those super curly cursive fonts, the kind that made it pretty impossible to read the words. After a second of the Mono-Lion waving his sign around, the pictured faded to black again.

Then the screen up and _exploded_.

It wasn't a _real_ explosion; rather, splatters of what was probably supposed to be blood flashed strobe-light rapid, like someone was actually slinging a paint brush back and forth in front of the screen, until the entire screen had filled up with the color. Or, uh. Hagakure guessed it was supposed to be blood, but the color was wrong. Enoshima’d used the same really bright red like before, for whatever reason. “ _Despair to the Lot of Ya_ ” popped up in black—also with _way_ too many exclamation points, one would do lady—against the red background, and it was probably supposed to be the title or something. Maybe. He couldn’t really tell.

But none of that was exactly what he was caring about, because Hagakure  _knew_ that word.

There was no way he couldn't know that word. It was hard not to know that word, what with the mechanical murder bear spouting every third sentence the past month like the punchline of a particularly lethal pick-up line used by a particularly desperate guy in a bar.

Enoshima said _despair_ too much for it to just be a evil catchphrase though. Hagakure would've bet money (like he didn't already owe enough in debts already) that this was some uber-creepy fetish, though he wasn’t totally sure how fetishes worked or if they could make someone do a whole ‘School of Mutual Killing’ thing. But still! She was totally into it and that automatically made him totally _not_ into it.

Meanwhile, the words on the screen just sort of sat there—as if it could tell that Hagakure was kinda distracted right now was waiting for him to pull his attention out the overstuffed closet of junk off the bedroom floor that was his mind—before they faded into the same red as the background. Hagakure did his best not to wince or flinch when the screen flashed white and the movie started.

 

 

 

 

The first screen was as unexpected for the audience as it was bland. It was what appeared to be a basic powerpoint title screen, the words scrawled across the middle in comic sans of all things.

**Motive Numbah #1**

The screen flickered, as if switching slides, and the next slide was one of those basic info slides with a big paragraph texbox but no pictures, still in that infamous font.

**Videos of What I’ve Done to Your Silly Families**

After halting for a moment on this unmoving screen, giving the audience time to read what it said, before the screen went crinkled with static, then turned black.

 

 

 

 

 The concert stage was a cacophony of music and lights as the girls moved, the crowd below entranced by the voices that came from the speakers. All five members were in their element, their hands swung and their hips moved to each excited beat of the tune. At the close camera angle, one could see the drops of sweat of their faces through their bright makeup and the slight tremble in their legs as they danced in their heels. Just the image itself was filled with energy, enough to touch the entire room.

Sayaka Maizono, the undisputable frontwoman of the group, looked to be having the time of her life.

Then a sixth voice appeared, over the music and the girls’ angelic notes. “The Super High School Level Idol, Sayaka Maizono; she’s the popular leader of a national idol group that swept the nation by storm!” Monokuma paused, his voice turned contemplative. “The spotlight really does suit these girls, doesn’t it? Eh, still..”

The screen shifted dark and Maizono’s figure disappeared into nothingness, while the other four girls kept frozen in place. A bright red overtook the background’s sky, while the stage itself slowly deteriorated until it looked to be in complete shambles. The girls who remained blinked out of existence for a moment, before they reappeared, collapsed on the ground.

They looked weak, they looked beaten, they looked _dead_.

“Oh no! For some reason, it looks like that popular group broke up! Those poor girls’ lives as idol are over. They’ll never bathe in that spotlight again! In short, Sayaka Maizono doesn’t have _anywhere_ to go back to! So here’s the question, why’d they break it off?”

The screen filled black, with the familiar gaudy words of “ **THE ANSWER : AFTER GRADUATION!!!** ” before the image cut completely.

 

 

 

 

A standard dorm bedroom, once plain and undecorated, appeared after a short period of a white screen. The once clean walls had been sliced at, wallpaper peeling away near the damages, and the spartan furniture had been near shredded in some places. Outside of the bathroom’s door Leon Kuwata was crouched, a screwdriver clutched tight in a gold-covered hand. A kitchen knife was set on the ground beside him. The bedroom’s security camera—perched in one of the bedroom’s further corners if the angle was anything to go by—caught the shake of his hands as he worked to screws of the door knob undone.

“If you don’t wanna come out, then I’m fuckin’ comin’ in, Maizono!”

“ _No!_ I know what you’re thinking — you want to k- _kill_ me so you can get out! You want to g-get _revenge_ on me! But I don’t wanna die, I won’t let you kill me and I’m _not_ going to die in here _!_ ” She babbled through the door, voice tinged with panic. The door rattled on its hinges. “You’ll _kill_ me! Get out—get out— _get out!_ I don’t want to die!”

Kuwata wiped at his forehead and breathed out. Obvious sweat glinted off his face as his hands moved onwards, to the third screw. The first two were loosely extended from their respective holes, only just still inside their screw posts. “Why the hell won’t you _listen_ to me when I say I _don’t_ want to kill you?” He shouted in response. “And why did you lock the goddamn door? It’s not like _I’m_ the one who attacked anybody here.”

In a moment of clumsiness his hands slipped, their appearance just as wet as his forehead, and the screwdriver clattered to the floor. He cursed and scrambled down to his knees and elbows to recover it, only pausing to wipe his palm against his pants.

“ _Dammit_. Look, I can’t just _leave you_ like this, so we’re _gonna_ talk it out! All you’ve gotta do is _let me in_ Maizono! I want to know why the _hell_ you just pulled this fucking _stupid crazy stint_ and you’re gonna answer me, so you better pull yourself together fast and stop freaking out!”

“You want to kill me! If I let you in I’m as good as dead, so _get out!_ ” The door rattled again, this time from the inside. “I won’t die in here I won’t die in here I won’t die in here I won’t die in here.” Maizono continued to chant, her retreating footsteps loud enough to be heard.

Screwdriver in back in place and the third screw out, Kuwata glared down at the knife. “Why do I have to be such a nice guy, _even_ when they turn out to be fuckin’ psycho?” Kuwata hissed in frustration.

“I won’t die in here I won’t die in here I won’t die in here I won’t die in here I won’t die in here.”

“I said _stop freaking out!_ ”

“ _You broke my hand!_ ” She screamed back and there was a thud, muted by the door. Kuwata reached the final screw, his hands shaking far worse than before. He kept glancing back over at the knife, eyes unusually wide. “You want to kill me!”

His back seized as he breathed, in then out. His whole body, not just his hands, had started to shake in clear nervousness. “And you tried to stab me, so I’d consider us even.” Kuwata said lowly, and then his voice rose in warning. “I’m on the last screw, so I’m comin’ in that room whether you like it or not! And I’m _not_ coming to kill you!”

“ ** _Get out!_** ”

With the doorknob effectively unscrewed from the door there was nothing holding it closed and so at the barest touch it crept forward with a halting creak of unoiled hinges. Violent screaming from inside the bathroom pierced the camera’s audio at a too-high pitch, resulting in an out-of-tune and static-filled sound, as the bedroom camera stayed trained on Kuwata. He dropped the screwdriver to the ground, letting out a tense breath. He looked down at his golden hands, then the knife laying innocently on the floor, and frowned. He grabbed it and stood up.

“I’m going to leave the knife out here, okay? I just want to talk.”

“I won’t die in here I won’t die in here _I won’t die in here_ I won’t die in here _I won’t die in here!_ ”

The door made another creak as he tapped lightly against it, and Kuwata hesitated. He looked down at the knife once again, stole a backwards glance at the bedroom’s state, and moved his right arm behind his back, his fingers clutching the handle as if for dear life. Kuwata pushed against the door again with his free hand until it had swung open to the fullest extent.

He stepped past the bedroom’s threshold, outside of the camera’s line of sight, and after a few halted seconds the picture blinked out to follow him. What had been the soft—if dimly lit—colors of the bedroom became the stark warm and cool shades seen from thermal cameras, a sudden attack on the audience’s unsuspecting eyes. Both Kuwata and Maizono were easily spotted against the bathroom’s solid wall of dark blue, due to their bright reds and yellows, but their voices became much harder to catch at the new angle. The bathroom’s thermal camera hadn’t a recorder attached, it seemed, and that left the bedroom’s recorder responsible for the audio.

Kuwata inched forward with caution, while Maizono looked to have pressed herself against the furthest wall. The knife’s blue blade stood out against his back.

Bits of warbled conversation passed between the two as he continued to push towards her with his free hand outreached it what might have been a calming gesture, though it didn’t seem to offer much to her if the higher frantic pitch of what could be heard of her voice was an indication. Their voices grew louder and the blue blade shivered in his grasp. Then, without indication, Maizono surged to him, her left hand outstretched and her right limp.

In retrospect, the attack wasn’t very dangerous. Maizono looked precarious enough as was, and she stumbled like a drunkard towards him without an obviously plan. At the time, however, it seemed to be enough motivation for Kuwata to decide he needed to draw the knife.

White—a new color of the thermal wheel—splashed across the both of them and scattered along the floor. There was a moment of stillness and silence, recorder distant.

Kuwata _shoved_. There was another couple moments of Maizono’s dizzied staggers before she hit the wall with an obvious amount of force, and Kuwata turned and bolted. His screech was just loud enough to hear, his words even less so, but Kuwata’s fast-paced rambling became easier to decipher as he flung himself through the door; the camera swapped back just in time to catch him trip across the carpet.

“ _You_ , you _just_ —” He choked on nothingness. “I didn’t mean for— _fuck!_ Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , fuck!”

What had been white splashes in the bathroom became familiar electric pink in the bedroom. Kuwata tugged at his soiled clothes, face red with tears and panic.

Another white flashed blinded the audience, before they were greeted with the sharp thermal angles again. Maizono’s bright red form had shifted to be seated against the wall, her color having dropped to a mixture of yellow and green with the long lines of white that surrounded her. It took her several seconds to begin to move—any time longer and it might have been assumed she were already dead from the wound—and Maizono heaved. She trembled, pushing and pushing herself until she was mostly slanted upright against the wall. Maizono shook as she moved her left hand, a light blue, down towards her stomach.

“What the h- _hell_ ,” Kuwata continued to babble. It appeared the bedroom’s audio continued to play. “I-I, now I've  _killed_ you—you! _Why_ would you e-even _**do** _ that shit, now we’re both royally _fucked_ and, a-and _I didn’t mean to fuckin’ stab you!_ Maizono, you _bitch_ , why did you—”

The white blood had shifted to a orange, the color disorienting enough, as none of it was fresh enough to keep hold of it warm shade. Nothing in the room was fresh enough for red anymore.

Through a series of awkward jolts, she managed to coat her neon blue fingers in the orange, and twist her body in a way that looked unnatural against the background to position the hand behind her. She teetered, her arm hard at work, before she slumped into the puddle of orange-yellow below her.

Something in the bedroom slammed. A drawer. “M—...Maizono, I fuckin’ just—” Kuwata stomped about the room. “I want to goddamn _talk_ and you had, had to go and. _Ruin everything_. You—”

A faint symbol peeked out just far enough past her arm to be seen and, if squinted at enough, one could make it out to be something similar to a seven.

“You’re gonna get me fuckin’ _**killed**!_ ”

 

 

 

 

After another momentary white screen, the destroyed dorm was swapped out for a much more intact bedroom. The inside was decorated with piles of magazines and several open wardrobes full of expensive clothes, a triple full body mirror and small stand taking up an entire corner. A messy space, probably too thoroughly lived in for how short a time they’d been there.

There was but a single occupant—Mukuro Ikusaba, the audience’s newly introduced classmate, it seemed—standing before the mirror, eyes aimed towards her outfit with unneeded ferocity. Her cropped hair and simple features made the outfit look out of place on her leanly muscled frame. She didn’t match the outrageous courage of her clothes, nor the bold statement they made; with her lip between her teeth, Ikusaba tugged at the low collar of her shirt and twisted to examine herself better. The heel of her boot scraped against the floor as she shifted.

“That is good enough.” She stated to no one but herself, a possible bad habit. With one final pull on her shirt, mirrored with an additional tug to her skirt, Ikusaba redirected herself to the vanity.

The surface was blanketed by varied and scattered makeup supplies, though the camera’s tilted angle made it difficult to tell what exactly most of the powder-covered or liquid-dripped containers actually held. One end of the vanity was completely cleared and cleaned, and there sat a lone wig upon its stand. Beside it, a hairbrush had been left—heavily and constantly used too, if the thick layer of matching blonde hairs were anything to go by. The wig itself was smooth and free of knots, its shine obvious in the room’s bright fluorescent lights.

Ikusaba worked around it as she applied her makeup, rubbing concealer heavy-handedly across the bridge of her nose to cause her freckles to disappear under the nude tones. Slowing in her efforts, blue eyes wandered back to the wig. Ikusaba sighed to herself, almost contently, and then looked back at her half-covered face in the mirror. The security camera couldn’t see her directly but the mirror reflected back her expression, hard with determination.

“One more day.” Ikusaba murmured, only _just_ caught by the recorder for the audience to strain to hear. “She said there would be only one more day, and then I’m done for good.”

 

 

 

 

As seen in the second clip, a ruined bedroom came into view just as its front door burst open in an movement of limbs and lack of balance. Breathless, Makoto Naegi scanned the room with anxious eyes, his face twisting as he picked through the carnage of the previous night’s battle.

“Maizono-san? Hello?”

His voice couldn’t be described as anything but desperate. Naegi stepped over a golden sword with careful steps as his face turned paler and his eyes met the bathroom door, slightly ajar. He swallowed. The room was scanned a handful more of times, Naegi’s hesitation clear on his face.

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

Unlike before, the camera did not follow him inside. It’s audio recorder did, however, catch the scream of horror he released upon entering, as well as the thud he and the floor made upon fainting.

 

 

 

 

The next room was neither previously shown bedroom. All the daytime lights in the gymnasium were on and shining down on the fourteen students—now lacking a certain deceased Sayaka Maizono—from far above. The camera angle was also looking down above, the security cameras supposedly connected to the gym’s high ceiling, and from so high the usually distinct students were now but vague colored shapes lacking any noticeable details. Ants, looked down at from the eye of an unseen god.

The audience had watched as one of the shapes had stepped forward and argued with the tiny black and white shape that was undoubtedly Monokuma. The shape spoke with a familiar voice, with Mukuro Ikusaba’s voice, but it held a snobby nasal twinge to it that was meant to copy what Junko Enoshima _supposedly_ sounded like. The bear rushed Ikusaba-in-disguise and there was a blur of movement where things clearly happened but nothing was quite clear enough to discern. The camera, as if sensing it’s own inadequacy, zoomed in.

“There, are you happy yet?”

The speakers had been adequate for the conversation so far, but the quality seemed to clarify even further as the camera focused on a particular spot instead of the entire room. Monokuma was on the ground, Ikusaba-Enoshima having stomped him into the ground. A single heeled black boot ground into the back robotic bear, Ikusaba-Enoshima’s face a whirlwind of false fury.

“Hm.” Monokuma paused. “Maybe I should ask you that, yeah?”

“Huh?” Ikusaba-Enoshima started—her expression now one of honest confusion—when Monokuma stopped his writhing under her foot.

High, maniacal laughter pierced the audio. “I thought you’d remember! Violence against you glorious Headmaster Monokuma is totally forbidden! Against the _school rules_. I’ve got no choice but to invoke my special summon magic! _Save me!_ Spears of Gungnir!”

In a flash of light on silver metal, a dozen silver spears shot up from the ground like hands and impaled Ikusaba where she stood.

She was just Ikusaba now. She was no longer pretending to be Enoshima as her breath caught in her throat, then bubbled back up with a gurgle of neon blood. Ikusaba gurgled and reached and gurgled, looked down at herself as her face went dark and her eyes went glazed, babbled something too mindless and drowned out by her own dying gasps to make out by the recorder, and then with one last imploring look at Monokuma went limp. Monokuma had no trouble scrambling out from under the dead girl now, and the room filled with screams as the spears withdrew and Mukuro Ikusaba fell the the floor.

 

 

 

 

Suspended in the air, the baseballs gleamed like diamonds.

Cameras watched the first execution from multiple angles at once, the view of Leon Kuwata’s death was constantly switching so that the audience was privy to every bad side. It was like watching a sports game on television, where the main advantage of not being there in person was being guaranteed the best view of the action at all times because the cameras were looking at _everything_ ; and so not a second was missed of the high-velocity impacts between the baseballs and the baseball player’s flesh. Blood, pink and bright in the dull lit room, flew with every too-fast hit, and air was filled with the _whir_ of the pitching machine and the _smack_ of the beating it gave.

When the pitching machine finally stopped it assault and lowered back down there was only a spotlight highlighting a corpse left resting against a pole, the sea of diamonds on the ground isolating a murderer from the crowd watching behind the curtain of a chain link fence.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #2**

**The Greatest Secrets You Bastards Don’t Want Out**

**Chihiro Fujisaki was born a boy.**

**Mondo Oowada is responsible for the death of his big brother.**

 

 

 

 

 The execution of the School of Mutual Killing’s first murderer had fallen silent once the machine had stilled and the gate had opened. The room filled by exercise equipment that led to both the boy’s and girl’s locker rooms were also silent.

Carrying the thick straps of a duffle bag with delicate hands, Chihiro Fujisaki gave the room a slow glance—as if the final attempt to discern any unwanted followers would could compel them to reveal themselves—and removed an E-Handbook from the bag. With a careful swipe, the boy’s locker room door swung open and Fujisaki toed inside.

With another flash of white, the screen followed. Any previous restrictions of boys and girls anywhere other than their corresponding locker rooms seemed to lose their power over the video as the locker room appeared, clear to all’s view. Inside sat Mondo Oowada, a workout jersey thrown thoughtlessly onto the bench beside him and a stack of dumbbells at his back. He waved, teeth pulled into a grin.

“Hey, Fujisaki! ‘Bout time you got here, I was starting to think you weren’t going to show.” He paused, then frowned. Oowada’s face turned as pensive as most had ever seen him. “But, uh, thinkin’ about it, you shouldn’t’ve even been able to get in here? Did you hack your ID or something? You _are_ the programmer or whatever.”

Fujisaki’s cheeks tinted pink, head ducked in embarrassment. “Sorry, no, you’re actually right. Only b-boys are allowed in this locker room.” A sniffle. “That’s why I wanted to t-talk to you though, Oowada-kun. There’s something I need to tell everyone, but I’m...I’m scared to. So I’ve decided to tell you first, to uhm. Well mostly to stall and build up my confidence, if I’m being honest.”

Oowada’s eyes darted around. “So, what? You stole some dead kid’s handbook?” He tried. “You won’t get in trouble for that or nothin’, trust me. Monokuma said it was some kinda gray area, so you don’t need to freak out about it or anything. I mean, _I’m_ still okay, right? There ain't nothin’ _wrong_ with taking someone else’s book. Sometimes you’ve just gotta, right?” Oowada continued, his hands beginning to wave about as he tried to explain; Fujisaki’s eyes moved from the floor to his companion and, in the face of the determination he saw there, Oowada stopped. His shoulders slumped slightly.

“I was able to come into this locker room because I was born as a boy.”

Chin lifted and lips gnawed between teeth, Fujisaki announced his secret to both Oowada and, without his knowledge, the world.

“The secret Monokuma gave me, it says I was born as a boy. That’s what I wanted to tell you, Oowada-kun.” Fujisaki breathed in and out, expression settling back. “It’s on my birth certificate.” He offered meekly.

“Wait. Are you...you’re serious?”

“Yes, I am. I’m sorry I lied to you all, I...I didn’t mean to be deceitful.”

Oowada’s face was still frozen in surprise and confusion. He struggled to muddle through the sudden new information, his jaw not quite functional as he opened and closed his mouth to respond. “Why’d you tell _me?_ ” He eventually managed. The audience could see the slight burn on his cheeks, the confusion in his eyes. “After all this time, you just decide to tell me, just like _that_. Fujisaki, this sounds like some serious shit you’ve been keeping to yourself a real long time. Why tell me now?”

Eyes redirected to the floor, Fujisaki gave a nod. “You’re right, I’ve been keeping this secret for most of my life. But...” Fujisaki looked up, his face once again a solid display of his sudden bouts of courage. Oowada physically flinched at the expression. “I want to change, Oowada-kun! I don’t _want_ to be weak, or to have to lie about any part of myself anymore. I was born a boy and that’s something I don’t need to hide anymore, not from my friends or from anyone else. I just need to be strong enough to tell them.” His smile turned bright, adorable and innocent. “And you’re so _strong_ , Oowada-kun! I want your help.”

Fujisaki didn’t notice the twitch in Oowada’s expression as he continued to speak, voice excited and filled with more energy than most had heard from him, or the sudden tense atmosphere around his larger companion.

The camera zoomed in and out as Oowada turned his face away, his shoulders tensed and spiked.

“I’ve always wanted to be physically stronger than I am, and I think you’re the best person to ask for help with that, but I mostly wanted to tell you first because I knew you would be okay. You can take anything I throw at you! You can take _anything!_ ” The admiration in his voice was clear, his eyes dazzling with relief. “I’m sure Monokuma’s motives don't even affect you, right?”

Expectant for him to respond—most likely with one of Oowada’s usual over-confident signs of agreement—Fujisaki paused when no voice followed his own. He looked up, smile wavering when he saw whatever expression it was that marred Oowada’s face. The camera still fought for a clear angle on the both of them, which left for many sections nothing but half-blurred jolts of them. The room fell silent.

Then he spoke.

“Are you saying,” Oowada muttered, voice a low but neutral monotone that buzzed across the speakers. He stood. “That because I’m so strong, I’ve gotta tell you my secret?” A ragged breath, like a bitter huff of annoyance, escaped. “I’m strong? Are you being _sarcastic_ ‘ere? Are you _making fun of me?_ ” His voice was a dangerous growl.

Fujisaki was still. “No?” He whispered with a slow, confused shake of his head. “No! Oowada-kun, I just admire you, I admire that you’re so strong a-and don’t let other people bother you with what they th-think and, I _wasn’t_ —”

“Then why’d you tell _me?_ ” Oowada bit out, the same statement as he’d said before. The angle still couldn’t catch his face, though enough of his jaw was visible to see how he ground his teeth. Oowada’s hands shook in their fists. Fujisaki’s hands shivered around his sleeves. “ _Well?!_ Why! Didya just want to mock me? You’re _mocking me!_ ”

“Please, Oowada-kun! I, I’m not trying to do any of that! It's the truth! I _admire_ you! You’re so strong...and I admire you...” Fujisaki trailed off helplessly, into tears. His face turned red.

“Heh.” Effortlessly broad shoulders jerked with a single, rueful laugh. With a reach behind him, one of the stack’s dumbbells was in his hands. “You’ve got that right. ...Yeah... I’m strong. I’m _strong_.”

Fujisaki trembled and heaved with tears, his steps backwards a pathetic attempt to stabilize himself. He let out a gasp as Oowada caught his eyes, thunderous expression angled upwards and finally entering the camera’s scope of vision. He was flushed a bright red from fury, from his neck to his ears, and his entire body _shook_ from it.  At his ferocious glare and snarl, the audience winced.

“I’m _strong_. I’m, I’m stronger than _Daiya_ ,” Oowada hissed. Fujisaki opened his mouth to scream. “ _And I’m stronger than **YOU**!_ ”

There was a crack. There was a thud. And then Chihiro Fujisaki was dead.

Oowada stood in place, panting and staring at the mess around his feet. It almost looked as if the video had stopped to buffer, because for the longest time nothing inside the room changed; Oowada didn’t adjust his stance or blink his glazed eyes as he recovered his breath, and Fujisaki didn’t breath at all. The film covered itself with static, a small fast forward symbol appearing in the bottom corner. The film gave no indication of how much it fast forwarded, only that it had. The static lifted and the image came to life again.

Oowada jolted in place, stumbling a couple steps backwards until he’d almost fallen over the bench behind him, and really _looked_ at Fujisaki. His breathing turned strangled. The dumbbell slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground, Oowada flinching as if he’d been punched. “No, no no—Fujisaki? _Fujisaki!_ Kid, come on, _kid_ , wake up, I need you to wake up now, okay? You gotta! Fujisaki, quit just lyin’ there— _you ain't dead so get up!_ GET UP! _Fujisaki!_ ”

He dropped to the ground and crawled forward, Fujisaki’s frail and limp shoulder seized in his larger hands. Oowada shook, shook, _shook_ with all his might, but the only effect his efforts granted was the splash of blood from the other’s caved skull when his head flopped forward. At the pink liquid drenched into his wife beater, Oowada jerked away and released Fujisaki — he slumped back onto the similarly stained carpet. Oowada's head whipped back and forth to survey the room.

“They can’t know. _Fuck_.” Oowada’s voice was saturated with his unbridled panic, still loud enough that even as a harsh whisper the recorders had no problem catching his words. Weak, slow tears crawled their way down his face. “No one can know the kid got in here. I-I can’t let ‘em find out.”

He looked half-dead himself as he struggled to his feet, unbalanced and near pathetic for a man who’d just committed murder. Oowada slugged about the room while he gathered all the bloodied objects he could find—the dumbbell, the poster, the then rolled carpet and quite obviously the body—and shuffled them to the locker room’s door. The video once again glitched as he made his way back out, and once it had returned to a clear picture it instead showed the room filled by exercise equipment.

Without warning, the door to the girl’s locker room slammed open, and Oowada emerged from the doorway, possibly even more bloodstained than before. His face was wet, red, and filled with regret. He shuffled forward with heavy feet and, once he’d made absolutely sure the door had closed completely behind him, exited from the exercise room.

To the audience, it appeared that the particular clip had ended; the image flickered white as expected once a video had ended. It did not leave the room though. Inside the exercise room stood Byakuya Togami, almost huddled in front of the girl’s locker room door. There was something in his hands, something metallic and rectangular that the audience could guess was most likely an E-Handbook. A coiled extension cord hung from his shoulder.

The E-Handbook swiped against the door’s reader with a slight beep and a chuckle from Togami as he entered into the girl’s locker room. The door swung behind him with an ominous click.

 

 

 

 

Chihiro Fujisaki was again occupied the screen, a quick white flash flickering between clips to continue with the show. He hung from two pieces of equipment, arms tangled with a white cord and busted head limp, with a bright pink message scrawled behind him in what could only be his own blood.

The girl’s locker room with still, motionless. Nothing moved within its walls, for there was nothing alive to move. Fujisaki was dead.

Until, after a slight skip in frame, something that still breathed and bled did. Or rather _two_ somethings. Makoto Naegi let out a shriek as his eyes fell upon the corpse of Chihiro Fujisaki and he fell backwards, scrambling to escape the suspended, supposed girl before him. His face had twisted into utter panic as he struggled to stand once again.

Byakuya Togami did not shriek nor stumble but rather smirked, eyes flashing with utter accomplishment and near-excited amusement, before his face morphed to something that could perhaps pass for surprise to an outside observer. He had not, it seemed, realized that he’d needed to fake for the camera too.

 

 

 

 

The golden walls and velvet red curtains of the trial room were grand in their excessiveness. It appeared that, much like the gym, the trial room had it's cameras situated on the ceiling looking down, and so that was how the audience was forced to watch the next clip. There were four posts taking the places of the four dead students—Sayaka Maizono, Junko Enoshima, Leon Kuwata, and Chihiro Fujisaki—but it was only the perpetrator behind the latter most’s death that was being debating. The living were debating what had happened, talking about the bloody dumbbell and the gruesome head wound, but it seemed that for Byakuya Togami this was all nonsense to be ignored.

“If you idiots would take even one moment to truly look at the crime scene then you would know the culprit is already perfectly clear.” He declared haughtily. All eyes turned to him.

“Wha-?! Are you serious?” Hagakure yelled. Asahina looked equally amazed at finding the answer so early after the lengthy first trial.

Togami nodded knowingly, utterly sure of himself. “The culprit who killed Chihiro Fujisaki,” Togami began, lifting his arm dramatically and pointing directly at Fukawa, “is the serial killer Genocider Syo! Also known as Touko Fukawa!”

“ _Eh?!_ ” Fukawa cringed away like a nocturnal creature introduced to the sun, eyes wide behind her spectacles. “W-why? Why why why why-?”

“What!” Yamada screeched, lurching away from Fukawa as much as he could with their posts right next to each other. “There’s no way!”

“Oh yes there is. The answer, in fact, is quite simple — Touko Fukawa both is and isn’t Genocider Syo.” Togami persisted effortlessly. It appeared there was nothing that could stop him from talking, not now. He gestured to the much shorter brunet across from him. “Tell them, Naegi.”

Naegi started, surprise crossing his face at being addressed, but after a beat of hesitation spoke all the same. “Well, if I remember the file we read correctly, it said something about Genocider Syo possibly having Dissociative Personality Disorder. Is that what you’re implying Togami-kun?”

Fukawa clawed at her head, messing up her hair as her fingers caught on the strands and pulled them out of her braid. “Y-you _swore_ you weren’t going to tell anyone _!_ ”

“I promised no such thing.” Togami denied. He crossed his arms, impatience creeping into his expression. “Regardless, I believe it is time to end this opening act. I want to hear directly from the killer herself.”

Fukawa froze. “W-what do m-mean the ‘killer herself’? That’s...t...t-t...t...t...that’s…...!”

The camera zeroed in Fukawa, centering on her and zooming in slightly enough so that there was no doubt that something was about to go down. Fukawa did not disappoint, her voice becoming so strangled she devolved into blind choking denial, and then even it became too much for her to handle. Her eyes rolled back into her head as the stress overwhelmed her, and she fell straight onto her back like a toppled cardboard cut-out. But the very next second her entire body _lurched_ forwards, jerking back onto the balls of her feet in a way that was nothing short of unnatural, and because the camera was focused on her the audience got a face full of beaming razor teeth and a too-long tongue.

“Hel- _lo_ everybody! Was it little ol’ _me_ you were lookin’ for?” Fukawa—no, that was undeniably Genocider Syo speaking, not Touko Fukawa—trilled joyfully. Her red eyes brightened. “I guess I’ve been exposed, haven’t I? Oh well, sometimes these things ust can’t be helped!” True to her words, her grin certainly didn’t give any indication that this bothered her.

Yamada screamed in fear, trying even harder to move away from the deadly girl next to him, but he didn’t dare leave his place entirely. The rest of the room gasped and shouted, reeling at the revelation that the quiet self-deprecating girl they’d all come to know was an honest-to-god mass murderer.

Syo took in their reactions with glee, one hand on her hip and the other gesturing through the air as she introduced herself. “My name is Genocider Syo! I’m the Super High School Level Murderous Fiend. I suppose you could say my real name is Touko Fukawa — or rather, Gloomy’s real name is Touko Fukawa, but that’s super lame sounding, am I right?”

The people in the trial room were still clearly struggling to recover when the screen went white.

 

 

 

 

The next scene was infinitely more sorrowful than the last. Somehow the trial room looked dimmer than it had before, and it muted the colors and expressions of every person standing in the room.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru was crying.

That was the most obviously detail of the room at a first glance, but to call it mere _crying_ was a horrid understatement to his misery; violent sobs had overtaken his entire frame, a once strict control abolished in sorrow, and the waterfall of tears and phlegm he produced was ugly with its own honesty. His pale hands has twisted into the collar of Mondo Oowada’s coat as he pressed his forehead into the other’s still chest, in search of some sort of comfort from the other, but Oowada made no moves to comfort him. His face was turned at just the incorrect angle to catch his expression, but the defeated slump of his body told plenty enough of what it was likely to be.

Monokuma was grinning—not an event too unusual in of itself—but his exuberant bounce and their obvious location was enough of an indication of the situation’s true nature. The killer had been found. The vote had taken place. The punishment was pending.

And the bear told them as much, a pent up sort of excitement in his voice.

Ishimaru had released Oowada and rushed to the bear so quickly that it was liable that if a member of the audience had blinked they’d have missed the movement in its entirety. His pleas for Monokuma to _stop_ , _wait_ , _don’t_ were unavoidable, however, and as was the laughter in response.

It was almost a surprise when, as Kuwata had before, Oowada was dragged away by a chain around his throat. He didn’t struggle as the culprit before him had, but the choked gasp ripped from his throat was still loud enough to be heard as the collar began to pull.

The screen didn’t fizzle, so much as simply darken. When the lights returned to a brightness that was high enough to see, Mondo Oowada was perched upon a motorcycle with his arms looped around the overly tall back of the seat. His skin almost looked gray against the drain of the lights. A metal cage loomed ominously in the distance, illuminated to the point that it appeared to be glowing. The streamers and the circus tent and the balloons and the springy tiger heads that flipped up behind it couldn’t cheer up the mood, and when the motorcycle roared to life and screeched off it’s block there was nothing more to be done.

The butter made no sense to the audience but, then again, nothing much did anymore.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #3**

**All This Money I Got Right Here**

**(look at it. so much money)**  

 

 

 

 

The bathhouse lacked security cameras.

It was one of the only things most who survived long enough could take a constant comfort in; any conversations or interactions that happened within the bathhouse were safe from the Mastermind; a precious sliver of privacy in their new, invasive home. Most had latched onto the room to satisfy their needs, whatever they may be, while others had simply appreciated the idea of momentary freedom from prying eyes and ears.

So, quite obviously, it was a lie. Monokuma had never actually stated it himself, had he? It was unlucky of them to decide so amongst themselves, without any sort of proof to back the idea.

As such, the next screen presented was that of the bathhouse locker rooms, crowded with nine students pressed tightly towards the left wall of lockers. Of those missing five were dead, while Kiyotaka Ishimaru could simply not been spotted. The remaining students were all present and accounted for though, turned away from the camera they so desperately believed didn't _exist_ , while whatever object they’d crowded themselves around produced a sickly green light across their features. The camera struggled to zoom in and out for a clear shot of what was beyond the teenagers’ shoulders, but even after it had bypassed Yasuhiro Hagakure and Sakura Oogami it still could not glance past both Kyouko Kirigiri and Makoto Naegi. The two would shuffle back and forth, with the soft clack of a keyboard to accompany their shifting forms. Then, between the slight confused chatter of the group, an unfamiliar electronic voice spoke.

“Welcome back Master!”

Hagakure leapt away, and the camera greedily took the chance to zoom in upon the spot he had once occupied. Now a plastic gray edge could be seen between Kirigiri and Naegi’s necks. “It _is_ a ghost!” He wailed; Aoi Asahina looked similarly shaken, but clung to Oogami’s arm instead. “ _I knew it!_ ”

“Calm down, there is no ghost.” Though her face could not be seen, it was easy to assume Kirigiri’s expression had clicked into the determined scowl she so often wore.

“Then what _is_ it?” Asahina whispered furiously.

“The program is undoubtedly Fujisaki-kun’s.”

With a slight shove of her shoulder to force Naegi to shuffle over, Kirigiri leaned back over the device and effectively blocked the camera’s view once again. More of the dull typing filled the air for a few drawn out moments.

“Who am...I?” The voice said. “Oh! I guess Master never told you about me? My name is Alter Ego. It’s nice to meet all of you!”

Hifumi Yamada made a sound of awe and pressed closer, while Naegi turned towards him with a sheepish smile and moved backwards to let him forward. The camera zoomed almost instantly at the new gap. It was a laptop, the screen engulfed by the stark green and a single dominating image: the face of a dead student, bobbing around in its confines with a smile of cheer as it's eyes scanned the group.

Alter Ego, the culmination of Chihiro Fujisaki’s group contribution and what would later be assumed to be the group's single best hope of escape, had been found.

 

 

 

 

Bad things happened each time the screen changed. This had quickly become a concrete fact among the audience and, as whenever the screen changed to that of a student’s dorm bedroom, it was assumed the scene would be worse than expected. Dorm bedrooms gave a sense of secrecy so powerful that people’s greatest lies were revealed. The next scene that was presented seemed to follow that very idea.

Celestia Ludenberg looked to be out of place amongst Hifumi Yamada’s plethora of anime and manga memorabilia, though the expression that pulled across her pale face was even more misplaced. Her demeanor, so often cool and reserved, had been uprooted and turned on it’s head; she looked like a helpless little mouse now, so timorous and nervous with her darting eyes and her twitching frame, that it seemed the slightest movement could startle her into bolting. Even the most basic parts of her appearance were now wrong: namely, her clothes. Her goth lolita garments and accessories were undoubtedly rumpled as if they’d been taken off and put back on again with great haste. Yamada clearly noticed the changes as well, his hands hovering over her shoulders as if to search her injuries but too worried about spooking her to actually check.

“You need help? From _me_?” Yamada repeated. His hands wavered again with the urge to comfort, but he held back. His eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Why?” He didn’t seem skeptical of the request per say, simply confused.

Celestia clutched a white gothically embroidered handkerchief to her nose and blew, attempting to keep a hold on to her characteristic grace even whilst she seemed to be falling apart at the seams with emotion. “Oh Yamada-kun, I didn’t wish to bother you so late, _especially_ after _night time_ , but I...I can’t allow this situation to continue as it is any longer. I can’t _handle_ it, you see. It’s already spiraled so quickly out of my control, and I _can’t_ —” She cut off with a whimper and jerked her head away, hands shifting to clutch at the rumpled frills of her skirt, to tug them lower. “ _Please_ Yamada-kun, I’m _begging_ you to help me.”

“W-Well, I-I—” He stuttered, nervous, then paused to gather himself. He flashed her a confident smile. “I’ll help in anyway I can, Celes-dono! But, uh, what exactly’s the problem?”

“It was...him.”

Yamada blinked, slow, and leaned closer at her hollow tone. “Who?”

Celestia clutched the handkerchief with both hand in front of her lap, eyes glistened with water. The girl looked miserable, as if she had prepared herself for the inevitably sting of being ignored. “It’s Ishimaru-kun.” She told him. “He’s been so... _unstable_ lately, y-yes? After Oowada-kun got himself executed? Well, since Kirigiri-san created the rule that neither you nor he were allowed near Alter Ego he...” Her breathing became shallow and glassy ruby eyes closed in pain. “He forced me to remove her from the locker and take her to his room and then, then he, he took your camera we found the previous day and, and—” Celestia choked, and crumpled down to her knees in misery. Her back shook as she tried not to cry, pressing her hands her eyes. The handkerchief fluttered to the ground, abandoned like her endless defenses.

The other squawked and dove to his knees, grabbing at her delicate arms to keep her from falling over completely. “Celes-dono!”

“It _hurt_ , Yamada-kun, his hands were everywhere and, and _I couldn’t stop him_ , he was too strong for me! Th-There were _pictures_ of it, on that camera he took, and if he did anything with them I _couldn’t_ —” Celestia sobbed, shifting to place her face in the crook between his shoulder and neck for support. “Ishimaru-kun is an _evil_ , a terrible man who, who — he _attacked me_ and I _couldn’t_ —”

Yamada was turned in the opposite direction of the camera, so it couldn’t capture the look on his face at that moment, but there was no hiding the obvious tightening of his muscles and straightening of his spine as he realized just what she was insinuating. His hands began to move in small circles on her back, following the textbook example of how to comfort a hurt lady.

“That bastard!” Yamada growled. Despite his usually passive nature, he looked seconds away from lashing out in a fit of rage. “He can’t get away with this! To do such a thing — it’s a disgrace!”

Celestia nodded emphatically as she shook, practically helpless in his thick arms. Her makeup had streaked across her face in such a way that she would never allow in usual situations, mascara and eyeliner in heavy coats along her cheeks and lipstick smeared around the edges and licked away by tears in the corners by her lips.

“Please, Yamada-kun. H-Help me _kill him_.”

“Of course, Celes-dono! I’ll help you in any way I can.”

 

 

 

 

Another flicker of white signified the next change, this time to a small dust filled room with a tiled floor and box-filled shelves against the back wall.

There was a single occupant, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, but he was decidedly _different_ than how he had appeared in any previous clips, his hair now completely white and eyes ablaze. He stood guard with his back towards the doorway but, incidentally, faced towards the camera. Ishimaru seemed unnaturally high-strung even by his usual standards, a part of body always in motion whether it be the quick rhythmic tapping of his foot or his incessant drumming fingers against his crossed forearms as he and the audience waited for something to happen.

Then a battle cry exploded from behind a suspiciously tall stack of boxes as Hifumi Yamada lurched into the scene a blur of anticipated action, weapon already swinging down.

It was a hammer, painted in ridiculous circus reds and cartoonish bright blues. Ishimaru caught sight the attempted assault from the corner of his eye a second too soon and _laughed_ —though the audience was more convinced the sound was something more of a vicious _bark_ overbrimming with excitement—and spun around to meet the weapon, parrying the blow with his wrist. The snap of shattered glass came from his wristwatch’s broken face, but he paid it no mind as the two faced off.

From the disappointed expression on his face when he realized just _who_ his attacker was, the white-haired boy now resembled a stray dog geared up for a real fight, only to find out his opponent was some dog show pet. “Really? _This_ is _it?_ ” Ishimaru gave a loud scoff of disbelief. “Why, this has has got to to be the worst goddamn joke I’ve ever heard; either that or the greatest! _You_ want to kill _me_? You actually think you _can_ fucking kill me? Well then, if this is the best I’m gonna get—if you really want to kill me that badly—then let’s see what you’ve got! Pretend I’m the big boss battle if you have to to get those pathetic muscles going!” Ishimaru hailed a cocky smirk, the fire in his eyes blazing, and fell back into what looked to be an experienced fighting position. Then he stuck out his tongue like a child on a playground, ruining the imagine. “Let’s see it! _Kill me!_ ”

A series of sounds came from Yamada’s mouth as he charged again but none sounded like anything close enough to resemble actual speech. The hammer came down a second time, more power poured into the swing equal to the fury now turning Yamada’s face beet red, but Ishimaru carelessly twirled away with mocking chortle like a ballerina, his movements oddly enough both reckless and practiced. He let out another barking laugh and made a silly face at Yamada, teeth bared into a sharp smile while he leapt forward to shove his opponent backwards. He didn’t seem to be taking this fight seriously at all, but rather as a childish scuffle for fun.

Yamada stumbled, almost out of the door, and would have fallen if he hadn’t braced his hammer on the ground to help catch his weight. Leaning against it to stay upright and catch his breath before charging back into the room with another swing, he glared full fury at his target. “You _monster_.” He hissed through his teeth.

Just as before, Ishimaru danced out of the hammer’s reach effortlessly. Once more safe, he bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet as he clapped his hands together with enthusiastic glee. Things fell into a stare-off as Yamada struggled to gather the strength to attack with his heavy weapon again, but Ishimaru wasn’t having _that_. He planted one hand on his hip and held up the other to make the harmlessly insulting gesture against his forehead that only a kindergartner would take actual offense to.

“ _Aw_ , is the angry little boy getting frustrated because things aren’t going his way? Has he finally figured out his lazy inadequacies are what’s making him so slow?” Ishimaru teased, mock sympathetic and head tilted in such a way that was so _blatantly_ out-of-character that it almost drew more surprise from the audience than any of his previous actions.

Ishimaru had always been so upfront that for him openly fake anything— _especially_ in order to hurt someone else—was the exact opposite of what anyone would have ever expected him to do.

Yamada’s face went even redder as his anger boiled. Ishimaru was about to mock him again when a revelation seemed to hit him, epiphany written across his face. “Ooh _ooooh_ , I’ve got it, I’ve got it! _I_ could stand still for a second and let _you_ actually get in a shot with that ugly ass mallet thingy of yours. Why, even _your_ shitty aim couldn’t miss if we tried that!”

“ _You—!_ ” Yamada’s voice was a painful shriek of rage as he found it in him to bring down his arms once again. The hammer crashed into the ground with a dull thud, nowhere near the intended target. He trudged shakily forward, dragging the hammer behind him. “How do you even _live_ with yourself after what you did to her! How you _violated_ her! You _monster!_ ”

Another haphazard swing, another dodging spin. The move placed Ishimaru back to where he’d originally started, with his front in full view of the camera. He gave an exaggerated look of disgust, wrinkling his nose. “You’re right about one thing—any man without the morals to keep his hands off unwilling girls shouldn’t be allowed to live. But listen up dumbass, I’ll have you know I haven’t _touched_ a woman in my life.” He stuck out his tongue again, clearly having thought he’d bested the other. “So _there!_ ”

Yamada heaved, bent at the waist with every labored weeze. “Tell that...to Celestia Ludenberg-dono! The woman you... _defiled_ _and soiled_...with your evil hands!”

Ishimaru jerked. “Wait, the hell? _Defiled_? I did...what?” Caught off guard, Ishimaru’s thick eyebrows slanted themselves, a face of true puzzlement. “I’ve never done anything like that to her. I haven’t even seen Celestia in days!”

Yamada made a sound in the back of his throat, practically a scoff. “At the end of your rope...and you _still_ wanna lie about it? About how you’ve made her _suffer!_ ” Yamada snarled.

“I…” Ishimaru’s eager stance wavered in the face of uncertainty, drooping and curling in on itself in a way neither Kiyotaka Ishimaru nor Mondo Oowada had ever done. A painful internal battle played across his face. “I...I wouldn’t do that. No no, you’ve got to be wrong. Kyoudai would _never_ do that, never never, and Ishimaru would never…”

“ _That’s right!_ You heard me!” Yamada lugged the hammer over his shoulder. His eyes held a near deranged light as he exposed his true purpose, righteous and vindicated as he loomed mightily over Ishimaru’s lost expression. “I know what you've done Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and no one who rapes a woman deserves to live! So! Just! _**Die!**_ ”

Unlike all the times before, wood met flesh with a violent directness that had the white-haired boy stumbling back as if dazed, holding upright as blood visibly spread through his hair, only to drop in a silent pile to the floor, not another childish taunt to be heard. From the way he was facing the security camera and the decent quality of the film itself the audience were able to watch as the white color faded from Ishimaru’s hair, reverting back to it’s original black between the slick blotches of pink blood seeping from his skull. The wisps of red that had once surrounded his eyes were also gone, their fire permanently doused.

A sound of pure victory crowed from Yamada’s mouth as he hefted the hammer over his shoulder—which had a thin trail of pink that dripped from its flat surface—in pride instead of wrath, and looked down at Ishimaru below him. Yamada’s face was still one of anger and disgust, but not to the extent it had been before now that the deed was done. His fingers skidded across the smooth blue surface of the handle and he licked his lips, eyes darting to the side for a moment. “You deserved _worse_.” He said, voice uncharacteristically chilled, but with a hint of discomfort. It sounded as if he were relaying lines he’d rehearsed. “But this is Celes-dono’s revenge; this is what _she_ wanted and as the one she came to for help it’s my job to give it to her.” With a final and decisive nod, he turned towards the other corner of the room. A blue tarp sat within his sights, unrolled and inconspicuous.

Then Ishimaru groaned.

Yamada startled, jumping nearly half a foot in the air at the sound of his murder victim _not staying dead_ like he was supposed to. In a scramble the hammer’s handle slipped from his grip, and he half-chased after it in a panic.

Meanwhile Ishimaru made another noise of pain, half oblivious to his frenzying opponent only a few feet in front of him as he struggled to push himself up. His expression, like his hair, had reverted back to something much more familiar, the softer edges along his mouth and the lack of tightly restrained, near-explosive stress throughout his frame noticeable to those watching. He aimlessly groped at the tiles of the floor with blunt fingers, breathing wetly as he fought his body to move into some semblance of an upright position.

“Wha...Wha just...?”

“I thought I told you to die!” It seemed that, until Yamada howled his own furious and utterly panicked words, Ishimaru hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone. Red eyes wide, his face shifted from hopeful confusion to terror in the few short moments it took Yamada to cross the room, winding up for another hit.

“Yama—?”

“ _Monster!_ ”

This time, when the hammer struck and another splash of blood soaked its edge, much thicker a spray than the first time, it was clear Ishimaru would not find himself awake again.

 

 

 

 

Another fuzz of white static, another storage room.

Only this was different, because Celestia Ludenberg was giving Hifumi Yamada a big tearful smile as she held his big hand inside her own daintier ones, squeezing them in gratitude. Yamada beamed back with pride. The two would have been cute, caught up in a heartwarming scene of accomplishment, if it weren’t the bloody corpse of Kiyotaka Ishimaru stretched out behind them like a macabre sunset lighting up their ending movie scene.

“I can’t thank you enough for this Yamada-kun. You did every little thing I asked of you without complaint, and exactly as I wanted!” Celestia gushed. She must have put on waterproof makeup today, as when she wiped at her eyes none of the black surrounding them smeared. “I must apologize though, for putting you through such an ordeal. I asked _so much_ of you, all because of my silly fears of seeing him again. You shouldn’t have had to do that for me, I should have…” She trailed, look down guiltily

Yamada puffed out his chest. “Nonsense! Any damsel such as yourself should never be left to fend for herself! Ishimaru-dono got what he deserved!”

She sighed, relieved. “Yes, you’re right, of course.” Celestia paused, expression twisting into puzzlement. “Ah, Yamada-kun, could you be a dear and check to ensure that the door is properly locked? I believe Oogami-san and Asahina-san might have followed me when I entered the art room in the confusion. We can’t risk them finding us in here before I do my part, correct?” She let go of his hands and took a polite step backwards, gesturing to the room around them. “I shall alter the evidence further while you do so that it can’t be traced back to either of us. I can’t stand the notion of being caught, not after all I’ve put you through for my sake.”

“Of course, my darling lady!”

Yamada obediently turned and made his way to the door, jiggling the handle. His back was to the security camera. Celestia just crept backwards, ruby eyes assessing as she inched step by step until her back hit the furthest wall. Nimble fingers wrapped around an unpainted hammer hanging on the wall, disturbing nothing more than chalk dust, and with silent steps Celestia slunk back towards her partner in crime until she was but inches behind him.

Yamada was oblivious though, jerking and screwing around with the lock until he gave up with a disgruntled huff. “Celes-dono, I think the lock’s been done up the entire time. Which is great, of course, it’s keeping people out just as it shou—” Yamada cut himself off and shivered, like he’d felt a chill crawl down his spine. He didn’t quite dare move, his front hidden because of the camera view, but the audience didn’t need to see his face in order to guess the trepidation on his features.

“Celes-dono?” He dared.

It has been hypothesized that an unpainted hammer made the same sounds when it cracked open a human skull as a painted hammer did. It’d also been a proposed that water was great at cleaning off blood, and once Celestia was done meticulously checking to see if both of these theories were true she calmly readjusted her dress to it’s previous state of utter perfection and waltzed out the door, two dead bodies left in her wake.

 

 

 

 

The next view was not that of a different room with a new scene, but rather the same room at a new time. There was were two equally dead boys in the middle of the art storage room but the camera clearly had a preference between them as it ignored Ishimaru on his tarp to zoom in on Yamada. The video blurred somewhat as it passed over a row of short and tall shoulders; it only cleared once Yamada and Asahina took up most of the screen.

Yamada was dead. Limp. A cold body cradled in Asahina’s lap as she cried, the horror of seeing dead body after dead body finally breaking something in her. Her tears kept falling onto Yamada’s face, but that didn’t matter because he was dead and dead people don’t protest when someone cries all over them, and they don’t open their eyes like Yamada just did, and—

“Uhh…” Yamada’s corpse moaned. “Wh...ere am...I...?” He lazily blinked, more a dragged down closing and reopening of his eyes than anything. Like a newborn zombie taking it’s first steps. “Oh...I see...I re...member now.”

Asahina sobbed in relief. “Yamada! Oh thank goodness you’re _alive_!” She clutched his head close with renewed fervor, squeezing his chubby cheeks. “Please, hang on!”

“I...knew all of...you.” Yamada breathed. He gave a weak cough, blood sliding underneath his spotless glasses and blocking his eyes. “I knew…”

“Hang on, Yamada! You have to hang on!” Asahina begged, yelling. She looked truly desperate now. Like she could feel her miracle running out of time.

“It...’s so c-cold here...Aoi-san.”

Asahina sobbed, shaking. It seemed that Yamada using her first name made everything that much worse. More real. “ _Please_ Yamada, at least tell us who did this? Who is the culprit?”

“The cul...prit?” Yamada repeated. “I remember….that name...I knew it…

“Ya...Yasu…..hi…….ro…”

 

 

 

 

The stage—bright with mystified flames that spread their colors across the wood with an undying, an unyielding hunger—was the picture’s frame, and Celestia Ludenberg was the prettiest painting to grace such a savage world since the Mona Lisa revealed her face.

Though, unlike the famed portrait of Lisa Gherardini, it was clear what expression her face held. A wry curve of her lips, a clandestine glimmer in her eyes. Celestia looked pleased, _at peace_ , with her fate; her thrown dice may have landed a pitiful outcome but she would do her damnedest to enjoy each final second her loss gave her. The Queen of Liars embraced her execution, sent her gratitude to its blaze; fire created light and light when focused upon a single being, a single _girl_ , it created a spotlight. It created _importance_ , and if Celestia was anything it was important.

The languid strokes of the fire were beautiful, what with their morbid smoke and graceful curves. Her execution wasn’t like those before it. The brutal beatings before it were for those who had so little grace as to deserve them, but her’s, _no_ , her’s was unquestionably serene in its nature.

Even as flamed tongues that licked her ankles and calves and thighs ascended, baked her skin black with their heat, Celestia _smiled_ , for she was go from the Earth as she was meant to enter it, with _dignity_ and _poise_ and—

The slow chords of the strings were overpowered by a siren’s wail.

The image pulled back, away from its Versailles Witch, from its Mona Lisa, to show the scarlet paint of the fire truck that raced forwards. It sailed across the ramp as if it no longer understood the concept of gravity, past the crowd of onlookers and towards the engulfed stage to save the young girl from her own flames of condemnation. Celestia did not flinch as the truck found her and her stage, her former spotlight.

It was possible that she still smiled though, through the crisp support beams and wooden rabbit that trapped her with the dying embers and smoke, but without her spotlight the camera seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the trouble to see.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #4**

**Ha Suckas Sakura Oogami was Spying for Me All Along lol**

 

 

 

 

“O-oh no...Sakura-chan…” Aoi Asahina’s voice was barely caught by the audio due to be on the edges of the audio recorder’s range, left hand gripping the frame of the game room's doorway as if to hold herself upright as she stared in horror at her best friend. Sakura Oogami paid no mind to the blood splattered across the front of her uniform and dripping heavily down the right side of her face. Instead she tried to give the shorter girl a simple smile, but it was more pained than anything actually comforting.

Asahina’s face fell further into near-panic at the sight and stumbled forward in a rush. “Sakura-chan, what the hell happen to you? You’re bleeding!”

Asahina shoved her face towards Oogami’s, trying to get a better look at her wounds. Oogami didn’t seem to mind until Asahina reached up to touch her hairline - then she flinched away.

Asahina pulled her fingers back, staring wide-eyed at the blood coating the tanned skin. Tears filled vibrant blue eyes. “You’re in pain….” She shook her head harshly, as if trying to dispel her misery and _focus_. “Who—Who could do such a thing to _you_?”

In one swift motion Oogami wrapped her arms around Asahina and pulled her into what appeared to be a surprisingly fierce hug, avoiding pressing the smaller girl into any part of her bloody blouse. The audience couldn’t help noticing how calm Oogami’s face was in spite of the situation. “Please, I request you do not panic so much. I am injured, yes, but these injuries will not do me in. Hagakure and Syo did not mean to hurt me so, they were simply frightened—”

“ _What?!_ ” Asahina jerked away, horror and fury flushing her face. “You actually met with those two? _Sakura-chan_ , I told you that it was dangerous! Did Togami show up too? Did they both hit you on the head or was it just one of them? Why, those bastards! I _told_ them I wouldn’t let them get away with hurting you for what you did, Monokuma gave you no choice but to spy, but now they’ve gone and done it! I’ll make them pay _!_ ”

Oogami’s face didn’t physically change, but something about her expression was suddenly much more solemn. Asahina didn’t seem to notice, turning her attention back to her dearest friend’s still-bleeding injuries. “But first things first, you need medical attention! I’ll go get the first aid kit, wait here—”

“Asahina.”

Asahina stopped mid-turn, looking back at Sakura. “Yes, Sakura-chan?”

Oogami shifted forward as if to grab Asahina’s hand, cringing in pain once more, and though the audio couldn’t catch the sound, the security camera showed her taking a full-body breath as she gave up. “I am...so _happy_...to have met you here. Even more so to be able to call you someone precious to me…”

Asahina’s expression paled, almost physically pulling back and into herself. “Sakura-chan,” she whispered, “just what are you saying?”

Some internal struggle played out across Oogami’s face. “I...have a request for you. Will you do it, for me?”

“Of course!” Asahina automatically responded.

“I am in need of some protein. Can you...get me some from the chemistry lab? I understand this is odd...but would you help me...?”

“You want—?” Asahina began. Oogami winced once more, much harsher than before and doing her best it seemed not to move too much, and Asahina broke at the pain that spasmed across her face. “ _Alright!_ Yeah, I totally got this, just wait one minute—no, just a _second_ —and I’ll be back!”

Asahina was a near-blur of red and brown out the door, leaving it swinging in her wake. Oogami walked in her footsteps towards the door at a greatly slowed pace, grabbing a wooden chair from the small side table as she went and dragging it behind her. Quietly she closed the door and, after a moment’s pause and only that, calmly placed the chair under the door handle.

The air suddenly became tangibly tense. Oogami, almost uncaring of this yet holding herself too exactly, made her way slowly over to the wide velvet chair in the center of the room. Settling comfortably down, she pulled something small and glassy out her pocket—a vial, the camera picked up after a moment— and with a set expression, pulled the cork off. Letting out a breath, she brought the vial ot her lips and tipped both back, the unknown liquid going down her throat.

Almost immediately she coughed, coughed and hacked, and then blood split from her lips like vomit, shaking even her mighty frame as she uncontrollably spat up neon pink. Eyes rolling back in her head, Sakura Oogami tilted her head down as if seceding to strength of death, her final opponent, and let her bloody lips tilt upwards in a peaceful smile under the halo of the overhead light.

Off in the corner, practically unseen at the edges of the camera’s view, tan fists pounded on the window of the door.

 

 

 

 

“ _Finally!_ ”

A crow of relief came from the speakers almost a second before the video started, the screen fizzling to life to show a hallway bathed in purple light, an equally purple girl the center of attention. Kyouko Kirigiri was half-dragging Makoto Naegi behind her with her typical lack of care, but Naegi looked more confused than annoyed. Standing outside one of the wooden doors to meet them was Aoi Asahina, looking much more frazzled than in the previous clip. She latched onto Kirigiri’s arm as soon as the pair reached her; Kirigiri didn’t make any movements to get away but she suddenly gave off the impression of being distinctly uncomfortable enough to want to.

“Kirigiri-chan! Oh thank goodness you brought help - Naegi! Please, I need your help! Something’s not right in the rec room!”

With a sharp nod Naegi moved past Asahina to the window on the door the small group was surrounding. He leaned up on his tiptoes, just enough added height to let him peer into what was apparently the recreation room. “Oogami-san... _?_ ”

“What do you see Naegi-kun? Is Oogami-san in there?” Kirigiri demanded. Impatient, she turned to Asahina. “Is Oogami-san the reason you told me to go get help?”

Asahina nodded furiously. “I-I was walking past, lo-looking for Sakura-chan, and when I walked past I sa-saw her inside — I didn’t know what to do! I tried opening the door but it won’t open, so I panicked and tried banging on it and yelling her name instead. B-But she didn’t even _move_...I, I don’t think she ca-can hear me…” Asahina dissolved into hiccups, her face wet.

Naegi, who had been rapping the glass, gave up with a frustrated noise and turned his head back to Kirigiri. “Oogami-san won’t respond to me either. What should we do?”

“First, we need to find a way to get inside that room.”

Naegi nodded with relief, only for his face to fall into uncertainty as he glanced back at the door. “But Kirigiri-san, with the door locked and Oogami not answering, there’s no way to _get_ inside the game room. It would be against the rules to break it down.”

Kirigiri crossed her arms, purple eyes narrowing into a glare. “We’re going to break it.” She stated simply.

“But—!”

“R-Right _!_ I’ll go, go get something heavy!” Asahina jumped into action, running away as fast as she could down the hall and out of the camera’s view.

Naegi went as if to call her back, but Kirigiri reached out and clamped a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back towards the door. “Wha—?”

Kirigiri motioned toward the door’s handle. “If you’d looked over the actual door beyond the window then you would have noticed that the door lacks a keyhole. That door isn’t locked.” Kirigiri placed a hand on her chin, contemplating. “There must be some other reason it won’t open. Perhaps something stopping the door handle from moving… Either way, this isn’t a locked room. Therefore that rule doesn’t apply.”

Naegi’s eyes widened. “You’re right…” Green eyes turning back towards the door with a new, overexcited light, Naegi pulled his arm back, his elbow pointed towards the window, and—

 _Crash_ —

“I’ve got a broom!” Asahina called, running up the pair with a wooden broom grasped in her hands and panting hard. Then her eyes bugged out when she took in the door window.

“I don’t believe that will be necessary.” Kirigiri commented, eyeing the now broken window. “It appears Naegi-kun has taken care of it.”

Naegi flushed, brushing the broken glass of his arm to avoid any cuts, but shook his head. “We can’t afford to waste any more time!” He defended self-consciously, reaching through the hole he’d made and struggling for a moment with whatever was inside the room. Pulling his arm back out he now went for the outer door handle, and that was the screen flickered and went back to the game room security camera the audience had been introduced to in the last clip. From this new angle the door swung open and the trio rushed in, Kirigiri and Naegi going straight to Oogami while Asahina stopped short just past the doorway, hand flying over her mouth as her eyes went impossibly wide.

“N-No…” she whispered.

“ _Oogami-san!_ ” Naegi yelled, grabbing Oogami’s thick shoulder to shake her. “Ooga...mi-san…?”

Naegi pulled away, a visible shiver going down him, and just as the screen on the wall lit up with Monokuma’s face the video cut black.

 

 

 

 

The screen started out black and stayed there. Surprised, the audience held their breath; who would be executed when the murder was really a suicide? Who would the blame be placed on?

A click followed by a start-up jingle and a buzzing of a small vent fan was the answer as the screen turned fully green, consumed with the screen of the laptop known as Alter Ego. Who looked identical to Chihiro Fujisaki. _Who was_ _already dead_.

This was wrong. Dead students weren’t supposed to be executed.

The ground trembled. Doe eyes, digital green instead of hazel brown, blinked innocently. Alter Ego’s smile didn’t move from it’s customary cheery upturn but it took on tint of a wary confusion as those large eyes flickered up and down in search for the source of the rising rumbling. The camera finally zoomed out, revealing said laptop perched on a single concrete slab and surround by a half-built city and construction equipment.

The bulldozer razed down every prop in it’s way until it stood over the tiny laptop that held every living student’s hopes and dreams inside of it. Digital green eyes looked up.

The first smash sent microchips and plastic keys flying. It only got worse from there.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #5**

**Where’s Muku? Here, Dead. Deal with it.**

**(i totally didn’t do it.)**

 

 

 

 

The white flash led to the greenhouse’s first exposure over the short film, to it’s bright colors and oddly uplifting atmosphere. In most other circumstances, any whom hadn’t before entered the room would have their focus drawn to the large tropical flower that sat in the room’s center, brushing the ceiling with its unnatural size and girth. To the neon orange outline, its entourage of oversized venus flytraps, the bright red-pink flowers spread out before it; eye-catching, indefinitely.

However, it was quite clearly not like those other plentiful circumstances, as there was not only a white cloaked and masked corpse laid before the flower, but said body had just exploded into a plume of bright smoke and flames.

 

 

 

  

Inanimate objects have no perception of personal space, so the video screen was almost entirely consumed by Makoto Naegi’s face. Every strain of his expression, every drop of sweat beading on his face — everything was clear as day down the shades of olive green in his eyes. Ember doused the background between the blackouts of metal gears and bars, all of it blurred out with the focus centered on the victim.

 _Bang_. A massive block of brass slammed down, just visible behind Naegi’s head as it shook the room right down to the tips of his hair. There was a conveyer belt, and Naegi was moving backwards, and the camera zoomed in more and more as he moved farther and farther back.

 _Thud_. Naegi’s shoulders were hitching too-fast up and down, heaving achingly hard despite his mouth staying in a tight line as his whole body shook, and if he hadn’t been keeping such a tight hold on any noises he made—absolutely none—he’s surely be letting out pained sobs. He choked them down instead as he was nearly launched from his chair with looming smash of brass behind him.

 _Bang_. _Thud_. Blue leaked onto an already purple face as he broke his eyes-forward vigil and tried to look behind him without turning his head. Lines pulled around his eyes, and for a flicker of a second his expression thrummed with barely-withheld anxiety burning beneath his skin.

 _Bang_.—Green eyes forward, trembling _so hard_ to not let any terror through— _Thud_.—it wasn’t _enough_ , the ember came and went with each heavy smash and it was _doom_ — _Bang_.—Makoto Naegi didn’t cry, didn’t acknowledge the sweat rolling down his face like false tears that he couldn’t stop if he _wanted_ to— _Thud_.—every dark line on his face could be seen this close, the bags under his eyes thick enough to hold the weight of all the dead bodies he’d seen since he’d come to this _goddamn_ school— _Bang_. _Thud_.—there _had_ to a savior somewhere that could swoop in, weren’t the innocent supposed to be _spared_ —desperate green eyes slammed shut in a last ditch attempt to hide _pure terror_ — _BangThudSplat_.

There was no savior.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #???**

**WTF People You Didn’t Even Give Me Time To Make One**

 

 

 

 

The library flickered into existence; the walls’ long dark shadows and weak golden light from the few lamps were a painful comparison to the bright white of the powerpoint slideshow. It was surprisingly late in the game for something to happen on a lower level of the building, as the most of the audience had first hand experience with the room. In fact, the current occupants would have blended in with the familiar room had they not been in the midst of a wild struggle.

Genocider Syo—and it was undeniable that this was Syo they were dealing with here, not Fukawa—leapt backwards, back colliding with a bookcase. She stumbled, but stayed on her feet with a terrifying grin. “ _Well,_ stick me in the oven and call me a hot potato, we have a special snowflake here!” Syo trilled in delight, utterly approving. “Babe, who knew you were such a tiger in a fight? Now if we could down to business, I’d _adore_ finding out if you’re equally dominating in _other purr_ - _suits_ …” She purred, leering, her tongue poking out to lick at the thin line of blood across her cheek and revealing the superficial nick underneath.

Standing across from her and panting like his life depending on it, his face unusually pale and glasses skewed on his face, Byakuya Togami stood. His guard was up, stance ready to rush. Shockingly, a pair of Syo’s signature scissors were held in a white-knuckle grip. Blood peppered his jacket and collared shirt underneath, easily distinguishable from the black and the white.

Squaring his shoulders, Togami sneered. Genocider Syo laughed.

“ _Oooh_ goodness grrr- _acious_ , you’ll be a be- _uuu_ -ti-ful corpse when I’m done with you!”

Togami’s face flushed, and in a burst of rage he flung the scissors at her face. Syo squawked and ducked — the scissors flew true and embedded itself in the spine of a book right where her chest had been, quivering with the force.

Rolling to her feet on the ground, Syo grinned. “Ha! Missed me!” She crowed, victorious. But when she reached up to righten her glasses, she winced and pulled away. Examining her hand curiously along with the camera, both Genocider Syo and audience spotted the line across her palm at the same time.

“Well lookie here...” Syo mused. She didn’t seem angered by the injury, just amused. “You’re really taking charge today aren’t you? You took my scissors and everything! Why, I can’t say I’ve ever had a guy diss me with my own babies! How’s a girl supposed to properly defend herself without a weapon?” Her voice became more of a pout towards the end, despite the grin that looked to threaten to tear her face in two. “Oh, well! I’ve worked with less, and certainly for less, ah, _sentimental_ men!”

Giving Togami no time to react, Genocider Syo rushed him, her legs encircled his waist as her body weight sent him crashing onto his back on the floor. His hands scrambled to push her off but her thighs were stronger than his thin arms, her howling with laughter above him as she forcibly straddled his waist.

“Sit your gorgeous ass down Mister! There’s no need to be difficult about this Byakuya-sama, we’ve both known this was coming for a _long_ time, right? All that sexual tension in the air was enough to give it away, honestly! So just chill out and let me get my spares out already so we can get this sexy show on the road! If you don’t knock it off I might just have to crucify you to the _floor_ instead!”

Togami did not, in fact, chill. Rather he bared his teeth and kicked his legs. “Get _off_ of me, you abominable menace!” Togami hissed, fingers digging back and forth in an attempt to claw at her hands.

“The _floooor~_ ” She singsonged, one hand moving to dig under her skirt.

The two tussled back and forth at Togami's attempts to get the upper hand, his eyes going wide behind his glasses as he predicted just what she was reaching for. Icey blue eyes snapped up to an unguarded neck and long piano fingers followed. Syo choked in surprise as Togami strangle her, the instinctive need to survive hardlining his face a her hold on him faltered. He started to force her backwards and down, shifting to sit upright as her legs released his waist and shoving down until she was bent in two, pressing her shoulder blades into her legs.

“By-Byaku-ya-sama—” Genocider Syo gasped out, eyes bugging as they struggled to stay glued to his face. Snarling, Togami glared and squeezed her throat threateningly. Syo sputtered off.

“Goo-d thing, I’m so-o….hehe, flexible, eh?” Syo finally managed loud enough for the audio to discern. Togami’s expression shifted to confusion before a pair of scissors came at his face, Syo having sneakily grabbed them from her thigh holsters while she’d been choked. The pair fell into a frantic wrestling that the camera struggled to focus properly on, scissors and limbs flying as Togami seemingly tried to get the scissors out of Syo’s grasp while Syo tried to stab her spare scissors through the lenses of Togami’s glasses to get to the eyeball underneath. Whether it was seconds or minutes that they fought was unclear to the audience as they watched, but it didn’t end until there was a scream — Syo flailed like a wounded animal.

“ _Fucking hell_ , goddammit!” She cursed. Menacing anger flashed across her face for the first time as she glared up at Togami, who had managed to pin her torso down with his own body weight, a reversal of what had happened before, and plunge the scissors into her collarbone.

Togami gave the barest of of smirks. "W-Well Genocider," he panted out, eyes beginning to glint in victory though his hands and arms trembled to keep it that way, "it looks like.... _ugh_ , you're finished."

"You t-think, that I'm...done for?" Syo challenged. She let out a laugh, the jerky barking one that scrapped against eardrums. Her pupils were blown wide, blank and erratic. "Like _hell_ I'm done for! We've just gotten started, sugar cakes! Do you _know_ how many times I've done this, how much experience I've had in the _art_ of murder? How many times I've ended it with a flick of my wrist? How many times I've killed scared little boys like you?"

Syo lifted her head of the carpet to strain closer to Togami until they were nearly bumping noses. The scissors stayed held between them like a bouquet, cinching further into her flesh and staining her blouse darker and darker.

"Allow me to make myself _clear_ , sweetheart." Genocider Syo continued, grinning big and bright and deadly. Her red eyes gleamed as they met his gaze and kept it. "I've killed _thousands_ of you. And in the end, despite all the fight you've put up today, you'll be no more special than any of them were before they were corpses."

Togami's breath left him and pulled back, his face paling as his expression went unreadable. Syo laughed until Togami managed to twist the scissors  _just right_ , to which she gasped.

“Look, _honey pie_ , you may be gorgeous, _but this wasn’t how I planned our date to go_. You gotta _work with me_ here.” She snapped, panting and seemingly getting exasperated. “Though I will admit, I planned for dinner to have a little more of your blood involved and little less of mine.” She grunted with effort, her hands entangling with his as they both tried to get the scissors to go in opposite directions: her up and out of her flesh, and him further in, possibly hoping he could find an artery and end this fight.

As if claiming neutrality the scissors jerked left, slicing down her collarbone, and Syo let out a wail of pain. Togami reared back as she writhed fiercely under him and, in another lightning-fast moment of instinctive decision making he snatched a book from a nearby pile overturned on the floor from when they’d bumped into the table during the struggle, seized it back behind his head with an undefinable expression as Syo’s eyes blew wide behind her glasses, and smashed it down upon her skull.

Red eyes never closed, not even after several successive hits followed the first like a reassurance; they stayed staring straight up at an invisible man hovering over her long after the real one had cleaned up the barest amount of the mess and fled.

The screen flickered black, skipping ahead, and the audience only had a few moments of a girl in purple leaning over that surprised corpse while another screamed in rage, gesturing wildly, before it went black again.

 

 

 

 

“Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

The scene was a familiar one, having repeated a complete six time at that point. The small cast of students left were inside the trial room. The only true difference, as always, being the decorations — vibrant violet drapes had been hung across the trial room’s walls, polka dotted with small neon pink elephants in various adorable positions such as playing with a beach ball or blowing a horn. The camera only payed attention to the these surface changes for a few moments though before swerving towards the villain of the hour.

“This is so sad I could almost laugh.” Byakuya Togami met all the sets of eyes now focused on him with utter sureness, unflinching even when he stared unwaveringly into an mismatched pair of beady black and jagged red. “Are all of you deluding yourselves? I didn’t kill her.”

Yasuhiro Hagakure scratched at the back of his neck. “Uh, dude?” He tried, looking to the side. He let out a weak nervous chuckle. “We kinda voted already? And Monokuma _said_ it was you?”

An expected huff of annoyance. “I suppose I shouldn’t have trusted any of you to see the truth, what with how ridiculously dense you losers are most of the time. Monokuma’s lying, _obviously_. Why would I, who has had to put up with her antics more so than anyone else, finally decide to kill her now? Genocider Syo wasn’t worth the danger nor the effort I would have expended to kill her.” Togami rebutted almost effortlessly, every word dripping with condescension and confidence. He readjusted his glasses, the light glinting off of them. “Though on another note, I feel compelled to add that whoever it truly was has my thanks. Both of those girls were quite the annoyance.”

There was no twitch, no glance, no sign of his complete guilt. He was the accused and the confirmed, and yet there he stood as superior as ever, arms crossed in casual annoyance at the entire situation. There was none of Leon Kuwata’s desperation in the steady set of his mouth; none of Mondo Oowada’s shameful tears in his sharp blue eyes; none of Celestia Ludenberg’s quiet acceptance in the proud quirk of his eyebrow; none, even, of Makoto Naegi’s shocked fear in the perfectly measured words that he spoke. Byakuya Togami had seen his condemnation coming and had rooted his feet into the ground, refusing to budge. Everything about his body language agreed with him — he was innocent.

On the other side of the lecterns, Kyouko Kirigiri frowned at him.

Monokuma gave Togami a confused look, sweating as he anxiously rubbed his paws together. “Well, it’s kinda, ah, _weird_ for you to thank yourself like that, but whatever! It Doesn’t change the facts, y’know? Murder is murder! Bears don’t care if you wanna admit it or not, but side characters like you only get so long to go over their intentions or whatever, so you better make it snappy! I know you’ve got coal for both Christmas and a heart, but I want another real tear jerker on this one, Togami-kun! It’s the death of a fan favorite, I’m sure you understand.”

Tapping his foot against the ground, Togami rolled his eyes. “I have no need to go over my intentions because I had none.” Togami retorted, getting a touch impatient now. “At least, _I_ wasn’t the dunce idiotic enough to commit a murder while only five remained and one of them was Kirigiri. Beyond myself and a certain deceased someone who actually _did_ commit a murder, she’s been the most successful at solving these trails. I’d have to have the intelligence of Hagakure to do something so asinine.”

Monokuma paused, then gave an exaggerated shrug that, to the camera, almost looked as if he’d wiggled his entire upper body in a mockery of a wave. “Welp, I _tried_ , didn’t I? I can’t force anyone’s life story out of them, especially not during my hibernation season! If you wanna play Mr. Grumpypants McSilent then we’ll just get started without any showy flashbacks, okay?”

Aoi Asahina’s face crumpled and she jerked forward, cheeks hollow. “Wait! There’s, there’s only _four_ of us left, really we don’t really _need_ to— _!_ ”

Monokuma growled, shutting up her protests. “Shuddup! All the Blackened get their punishments and no teary-eyed do-gooder will change my mind! The system can’t handle a complete script rewrite like _that_ , it’d have me tearing my fur out by daybreak! We have a formula going here people.” Monokuma waved his arms wildly. “And so on we go! I’ve got a _very special_ punishment for Byakuya Togami, Ultimate Heir!”

For a moment Togami’s face didn’t change from it’s smirk, daring Monokuma to do it. Then the steel collar shot out from the darkness and Togami’s demeanor flipped in an instant; he let out a sharp cry and threw himself at his stand, hands wrapping around the edges of the wood with nails clawing recklessly at its wooden surface for purchase as the glinting metal clamped around his throat. To his credit he wasn’t immediately forced into the dark hallway behind, but the choked, animalistic shout he released as the taut chain tried to rip him backwards sent shivers down the audience’s spines.

Asahina screamed.

“Oh, that won’t do!” Monokuma crowed with a distinct note of cheer.

The chain pulled against him harder and Togami’s fingers began to bleed as he forced them to hold tight against the force, the nails breaking and the nail beds tearing. There was the obvious sheen of tears in his eyes and sweat beading across his forehead as his face paled, paled, paled. Smooth facial features scrunched up tight with unadulterated fury as perfect teeth ground together — a semblance of control as he clung without pride.

For a long moment there was this undeniable feeling that he could do it. Togami would be able to attach himself to his podium with enough stubborn and distraught vigor until Monokuma gave up, canceled the execution, let them leave the trial free of another loss because there was no way that Togami was going to die like that. He wouldn’t allow it. Unbidden and brief, that hope settled in the audience’s stomachs and the trial attendant’s eyes.

One hand slipped. Once well-manicured nails dug in for purchase where there was none to be found and the second hand slipped too, shallow bloody scratches in the wood left behind. He disappeared into the shadows with a vile howl that left the recorder ringing with its pitch, the video cutting black immediately afterwards.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #6**

**Mama Made You a Lullaby of Your Dead Friend’s Best Moments**

 

 

 

 

Out from the tortured sounds of the previous murdered came the background’s buzz of static that solidified the next clip, with an uncomfortable amount of practiced ease.

The new presented scene was normal to a level that left the audience unnerved. Three survivors—Kyouko Kirigiri, Aoi Asahina, and Yasuhiro Hagakure—were seated around what had over time become an obtusely large dinner table, eating their breakfast together in muddled silence. The lights of the room almost appeared muted, as if it were nothing more than a slow rain-filled morning shared between a group of drowsy friends, but the precipitation that beaded carefully across the indoor windows along the wall couldn’t be real rain. Perhaps it was logical to assume everything else about the picturesque morning was false as well.

A glass clicked against a bowl, loud and chipping, and the sound rang just too sharp in the audio recorder. Head down and wild strands of hair dipping from her ponytail to cover her ashen face, Asahina let out a breath, then maneuvered her hand with less pace. Her filled cup set down on the table with more grace than before, but her fingers still shook when she pulled away to set it in her lap.

With stiff shoulders, Hagakure dared to look towards her, his face crinkling when he caught her expression. Kirigiri didn’t move from the slow bites of her granola bar.

“Are neither of you going to say anything?”

Hagakure started and whipped to stare her down. “Wha—um, Asahina-chi? Wh-What are you talking a—”

“The _goddamn videos!_ ” Asahina shrieked, and slammed her fists onto the tabletop. Her glass toppled, water pooling beneath it. Bloodshot eyes ringed by thick bruises glowered at them. “The goddamn videos that he played _all night long!_ The one that wouldn’t _stop_ , no matter how much you begged or screamed, that just showed the same things _over_ and _over_ in our rooms! That showed _Sakura-chan_.” Her voice warbled with tears, then hardened again through outrage. “How could you not have seen them when, when I couldn’t _stop!_ No matter what I did! _They wouldn’t stop!_ ”

He stuttered at her, physically _reeling_ in the wake of her anger. Beside him, Kirigiri swallowed and folded what remained of her breakfast back into its wrapper, set it down. She turned to Asahina and met her eyes, calm and collected in the face of her desperate breathes.

“If you think,” Kirigiri began simply, “that you were alone in the assault last night, then you would be mistaken. You were not the only one reminded of your mistakes, nor were you the only one kept awake by them.”

“Then how are you so calm? _Why?_ ” Asahina snarled back. “How can you just, just sit there and not want to _scream?_ Everyone’s _dead_ and here we are, just sitting around eating together like none of it even _mattered_. Like we don’t even care! It isn’t right!”

“Nothing about our situation has ever been remotely right.” Kirigiri reminded, a touch gentler. “Being foolish will get us nowhere, and acting foolishly will get us dead.”

Asahina ground her teeth, thick tears of anger gathered in the corners of her eyes as she shook her head. “Shut up, shut up! Who even cares about that anymore, Kirigiri-chan?” It wasn’t so much a question as a vile hiss. “I just want her _back_. I want Sakura-chan to tell me to calm down. I want Naegi-kun back and Fukawa-chan and Yamada-kun, Maizono-chan and Fujisaki-kun — I want them all _back!_ I’m sick of this, all these empty chair and all this _quiet_ because no one’s left! Ishimaru-kun should be _here_ yelling at us to all stop interrupting him, and—and Celestia-chan should be _there_ sipping the stupid tea Yamada-kun made for her, but _no_ , it’s all silence and tension and I hate it! Hate it, hate it, hate it! We’ve been _utterly useless!_ ”

Asahina was on her feet, chest heaving, Kirigiri looking up to meet her eyes from her seat down the table. The air hummed with tension as neither adjusted, only stared the other down. Then, finally, Asahina sat back down.

A shaking, terrified hand rose into the air from behind Kirigiri. “A-Am I the only one here that, um, w-well, slept l-last night?” Hagakure half-mumbled half-stuttered out his words, but had apparently decided that figuring out what the girls were talking about was worth the danger of Asahina’s wrath.

Asahina’s face shut down, her body going absolutely still. “You...didn’t hear the videos playing in your room last night?” She whispered. Her voice was flat, only lilting up at the end to signify that it was a question at all.

Brown eyes wide and sweat gathering on his brow as he quaked in terror, Hagakure shakily shook his head.

Asahina didn’t say a word. For a moment she didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t do anything but let her fingers curl slowly around the discarded silverware at the sides of her plate. Hagakure trembled; Kirigiri’s eyes narrowed.

“...You bastard.”

In a barrage of lightning movements Asahina leapt from the table and lunged three chairs down the table, shoving Kirigiri to the ground as she passed to launch herself at Hagakure with screaming single-minded rage. Hagakure fell backwards in his chair, just avoiding her, and pushed his palms against the floor to stagger to his feet, barely dodging a knife to the thigh when Asahina skidded past him and crashed on her knees.

“ ** _You bastard!_** ” she screamed. With a snarl she pushed herself up from her knees and ran, chasing him around the table as he circled it in a panic.

The camera watched as they ran, endless circles around the table; Asahina’s crazed, unstable shrieks against Hagakure’s high shouts of panic made for an ugly sound against the room’s recorder. Whether he focused on running from her or whether he pulled chairs out from behind him or whether he slipped and stumbled, Asahina kept behind him with the vigor of a riled bloodhound. Each step from the difference between a knife against empty air or against his back.

Then Hagakure slipped and the audience held their breaths.

Asahina let out a strangled cry as she leapt towards him, fork outreached to attack. Her eyes shined too bright, too frantic, and with too many tears. She jerked the fork down with enough strength to move her entire body and cried when it landed.

Straight into purple leather.

Asahina slammed into Kirigiri, sending them both careening to the ground. Pushing herself up and finding herself on top of the wrong person, Asahina’s screams of rage skidded to a halt, breaths stuttered as her eyes stared uncomprehendingly at where metal and leather met. Horror shook her entire body as she started tugged on the fork, now desperately trying to get her impromptu weapon _out_.

She shook her head back and forth as the tears came down in misery now, pulling as hard as she could to fix her mistake. “No, no no no, why did you get in the way, you weren’t supposed to get in the way! I just wanted to hurt him, he deserved to hurt too, we, _you_ , I just can’t be the only one hurt here — it isn’t _fair_! I can’t be the only one breaking, I _can’t_!”

The audio couldn’t catch whatever Kirigiri said, but her eyes were crinkling in the corners and her face was too lax for someone with a metal fork sticking out of their forearm. Perhaps the audience was just deluding themselves, but it looked as though the corners of her mouth were turned upward.

Asahina’s face fell though, obviously having heard what Kirigiri had said from where she was straddling the other girl, and she fell into begging _please_ and _you’re wrong_ over and over as she tried to get the fork out. It wasn’t a mortal wound by any means, but then in her panic Asahina swung her _other_ hand—the one still white around the silver shine of a knife, of a _weapon_ —and in one less-than-clean slice the knife went through pale flesh of Kirigiri’s neck. Pink splattered, across a frozen face horrified at what it had just done, across the edges of a table and the back of a chair. Purple eyes slid closed.

“No…” Her knife clattered to the floor as Asahina moved her arms around Kirigiri’s shoulders to wrap around her back, and clutched the other girl to her chest. She collapsed on top of her, blood dribbling from where opened arteries had been introduced to the air, down the dead girl’s front. “No, _Kirigiri-chan_...I’m didn’t mean it...I...” She sobbed. “It was just an accident, I was being _stupid again_ and I didn't. I...I _didn't_ , no, I didn't! Please, please please _please_ , I didn't! _Sakura-chan_ , I didn’t meant to do it! I didn’t meant to betray you! I _didn’t_.”

From the aerial view of the security camera’s position on the wall, the audience watched as a head thick with dreadlocks finally poked out from under the table while the only girl left dissolved into sobs, his face pale as the skin of the dead girl who had taken  his place.

 

 

 

 

It was impossible to fully understand the sensation that comes when one drowns; when water rushes through noses and mouths, into lungs where it was never meant to be.

Some would compare the idea to that of when a particularly unexpected wave knocks them over, tumbling through the water and sand and seashells — the moments of panic consumed by _where’s the surface_ are frightening, yes, but then the water’s surface is breached and the moment is over. The water is coughed away. The panic subsides. It ends.

For Aoi Asahina, _it would not end_.

The audience could see the air and so could she, just past the great tank’s silver-lined top. That might have been the intended cruel irony of the situation. Sweet, sweet air was _there_ —three arm’s reaches away from her, two expert _strokes_ —and Asahina was bound to her grave by a cuff and chain. It didn’t stop her struggles, not when the crystalline water splashed past the tank’s edges, or as the chain pulled taut against her leg with enough friction to bruise and break the skin, or once a swarm of sharks dove from the stage’s top curtain into the water. Not when they began to circle her, either.  

If life were a cartoon, perhaps something light-hearted to watch on an early Saturday morning as a child, then the killer fish would have licked their lips as a comedic sign of their hunger. As it were, one of them merely surged forward and removed itself a teethful of her leg without even the slightest hint of lip-licking or otherwise.

The audience could conclude that shark attacks were also harder to empathize when watched, though there was no lack of effort to try.

 

 

 

 

**Motive Numbah #???x2**

**Okay So I was Kinda Excited for Round 2, Sue Me**

 

 

 

 

At long last, the screen changed itself for one final image: a sweeping view of the courtroom and two sole occupants. Yasuhiro Hagakure was moments away from tears. Junko Enoshima merely tapped at her clipboard.

Their mouths were moving, that much the film was clear enough, but any recorded audio was overlapped by a stagnant and underpitched loop of dull lulling elevator music. It was clear whatever Enoshima was saying was the cause of Hagakure’s distress. He was pressed hard against the elevator’s doors, Enoshima only a handful of steps away as she continued to jabber on, with a face slick with sweat and hands that shook to the point that looked painful. His face was blue around the edges.

The two looked to be trapped in a staring contest—if it could be called that—with Enoshima’s gaze fearfully intense and Hagakure’s returning look simply fearful. Then, quick as a whip, the Mastermind reached behind herself and into her skirt’s waistband.

Hagakure’s screech as the revolver was fired into him breached through the elevator music, high and pained, and the audience winced.

It wasn’t until Hagakure had collapsed to the ground—clawing, _desperately clawing_ at himself, and the tears on his face only served to make him look more pathetic in his more final moments—and Enoshima had followed him, to hold her stuffed Monokuma bear and stroke at his cheek with soft hands and smile at his bloodstained chin, that the clip faded out into darkness.

 

 

 

 

**DAY 1 NIGHTTIME — ROUND 2**

 

 

And then there was darkness.

Hagakure had bled out on the screen, the neon of his blood and the white of Enoshima’s teeth still visible against her eyelids whenever Maizono dared to blink, but it seemed this was the last clip of the video production. It had been the end. The screen died; blank with its lack of horrid violence or terror-filled screeches, it was left with a washed gray shade that illuminated the room with depressed colors and shapes, but little more. No one dared to protest the darkness — even Togami kept to himself.

However, the lack of a definite group discussion didn’t mean that noise itself was absent. From Maizono’s seat—the close huddle between Naegi, Ikusaba, Kirigiri, and herself had spread itself out over the video’s course, likely due to its very content—she could still catch the light whisper of Naegi’s whispers to Ikusaba.

Their words were sparse, but just clear enough for Maizono, and possibly Kirigiri, to hear. Small givings of reassurance, careful apologizing in clear regret. Ikusaba’s speech to Enoshima made much more sense after what they had seen.

Some of the others still shed their tears, but Maizono could only guess as to who in the poor lightning of the room.

If she thought to put her mind to it, Maizono would pin what sounded to be some depressingly gross sobbing Yamada, what with the heavy loud wails and the lack of another’s comfort over the noise, though the rest of the softer hiccups and sniffles were possibly impossible to pinpoint on one specific individual. Other sounds rang about the room as well, more subtle. The shuffle of a sleeping bag against the hard floor and the readjustment of pillows, as well as the slow murmur of those still awake. It was an uncomfortable harmony against the gymnasium’s echo.

Then again, she couldn’t gather enough effort to put her mind to it in the first place. She simply let herself absorb the background noise, sink into it, and tried to leave her mind blank. Ignore what you had just seen, Maizono, don’t dwell, it doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s all over, after all. Hagakure had said so himself, over and over, after his own dead face had disappeared, just loud enough for all to hear and just hopeful enough for none to take the intended comfort. It was over, done, _finished_.

Heh. She wished.

What felt like just hours—days—years— _centuries_ —ago Maizono had been pulling at her hair in an attempt to get some damned answers out of everybody, and in doing so had turned a blind eye to the clear warning signs inches from her own oblivious face. It had been like she’d become blind and invisible, just outside of the scope the rest had come to occupy after her death, and she had hated it. Maizono was curious by nature, ready to poke her powdered nose wherever she believed it should be, and hated being left out and alone more than anything. Only then, after having her own heart ripped from her chest and smashed before her blind eyes, did she realize that she had been positioned on a precipice instead, her toes peeked over the edge while she skipped along, stupid and comparably care-free; she had been childish.

Maizono had put her faith in the freedom of the truth, the knowledge that waited below in the black abyss. With that faith she’d leapt, had gone and thrown herself over the line and in the end all it had done was break her bones on the impact.

There was nothing in the world that could amount to forgetting the face of absolute terror on Naegi’s face before he died. _As_ he died. Her stomach was hurting again.

If there was anything she wanted, it was for Naegi to scoot himself back to her side and tell her everything was alright again. He was alive, see? Right there, beside her, living and breathing while he held her hand and pet her hair and smiled. He’d smile even though it would be too dark for her to see it, she was sure that he would. Might even tell her things were okay now that everyone was back together.

But she’d known better, known that it was selfish of her to keep all of his attention with her petty feelings and weaknesses. Maizono wouldn’t keep him occupied when someone else needed to hold his hand and hear his voice.

It would all be a lie anyway.

And Ikusaba needed him more at the moment. Who was Maizono to stand in the way of that?

So she kept her silence, waved Naegi back towards the still-quivering Ikusaba when he tapped her shoulder in question, scooted her sleeping bag away from their circle and found herself a space; Maizono was still a master at lies—it isn’t deceit if it’s for others, it isn’t deceit if it’s for _others_ —and it was too dark for Naegi to see the wetness on her face, so she would manage. She needed to learn how to control her own volatile emotions without his constant supervision anyhow.

It was impossible to tell how long it took the white noise to lull her into a thick dreamless sleep, swamped by nothing but her own thoughts and confined to nothing but her own memories. The sleep wasn’t restful, that much was sure, but Maizono wasn’t sure if it drained her either. She felt more stagnant than anything, motionless and weak and like she was wading through a pool of water up to her waist. It was better than the panic-filled alternative, but still its own kinds of unpleasant. Maybe she was just too tired to lose her piece of mind again.

Waking up didn’t feel much like waking up should, so much as just opening her eyes again to a heavier body than before. It wasn't like this was first time she'd done that today — was it still _today_ , or had they been allowed to move on with their lives yet? Maizono swallowed a yawn.

A hand brushed her shoulder like it was scared of being burned. She didn’t move, let herself stay in place as if either of them thought she was still asleep. “Ma—” A voice stuttered, then paused, breathed, and tried again. “Maizono-san?”

Her palms pressed against the cold laminated floorboards and she pushed herself, nearly fell from the tangle of her torso and legs in her sleeping bag, then sat up. There wasn’t even enough energy in her system to feel embarrassed. “Huwah?” Maizono didn’t mean to sound so out of it and cleared her throat. “Huh, yes?”

If she squinted, Maizono could make out the short stature and delicate bird-like figure standing in front of her against the screen’s gray background. She would bet a familiar umbrella skirt would be just inches lower, if the screen had reached that far. So. Fujisaki, huh? That didn’t make much sense. Why would he want to talk to someone like _her?_

“Hi there, Maizono-san. It’s, uh, it’s me.” Fujisaki fidgeted, voice uncomfortable. “Would you mind if I...slept next to you? Because I, I—” The outline’s head ducked and Maizono was bemused to register that it was probably because he was embarrassed. “It’s okay if you don’t want me to. I, I mean, I _want_ you to, um, say yes but it’s okay if you don’t, i-it’s fine. Y-Yeah, I’ll just, uhm, I should—”

Maizono held out a hand when Fujisaki turned to go. “Hey now, shhh. Stop it.” She said, soft like how Naegi would. “You don’t need to do that. It’s fine with me, really Fujisaki-kun.”

“Fujisaki-san.”

Maizono’s hand paused, still midair. “Um, I thought you said in the—”

“No, I...” Fujisaki shook her head, and if it were bright enough Maizono would bet she would be biting at her lip. “I—I know, but I thought it would just be easier for everyone to keep with f-female pronouns...like they’re used to. I’d rather not inconvenience people with t-things like that.”

“Oh, okay then.” She told her. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Maizono breathed and patted at the ground again. “Alright, well you can still sit down, okay? Like it said, I don’t mind if you want to.” Didn’t understand if she wanted to either, but there wasn’t much Maizono could do about that.

There was a moment where neither moved and Maizono almost thought Fujisaki still hadn’t believe her. Then the other jerked into motion and unrolled a sleeping bag Maizono hadn’t seen, a respectable distance away from her own. Maizono was glad she had moved from the other three earlier. It might have made Fujisaki even more uncomfortable with them nearby.

“Thank you. I’m s-sorry for bothering you in the first place.” Fujisaki whispered, just a breath above the silence. The rustle of her sitting on her bag was easily louder.

“It’s okay.” She said, because that’s what people said in situations like that; Maizono meant it too. If Fujisaki chose to sit with her for whatever reason, who was she to judge? Maizono was lucky enough anyone even still bothered to give her the time of day. She should have been the one to say thank you.

No one wanted to be friends with a backstabber. Or they _shouldn’t_ anyway. The people here who needed to follow the rules the most seemed to like to break them more than was healthy.

Maizono waited until Fujisaki had settled before she spoke again, with low words in case anyone else still happened to be awake and decided to listen. “So can I ask why you wanted to move over here out of nowhere? It probably isn’t my sparkling personality, huh?” Her chuckle fell a little flat, but it still felt nice to say out loud and into the open air. The realization that it was probably rude to ask such a personal question came a few moments too late for Maizono to apologize for without making it awkward.

“You can ask but I...I don’t think the answer is r-really that important.”

Maizono nodded and relaxed back, closed her eyes. Her head rested against the uncomfortable built-in pillow of her bag and she could feel the brush of sleep again. “It really isn’t my business either, I guess.” She murmured.

Fujisaki breathed. “Maybe not.” She agreed. “But, uhm, but. I...” There was a rustle but Maizono couldn’t make her eyes open to look and see what it was. “I was scared. Of Oowada-kun. I had a nightmare and was scared, and I needed to move somewhere to sit with someone. Sorry.”

Oh. _Oh_. Her eyes opened to look at the vague shapes of the crossed rafters above her; she wouldn’t have been able to turn towards Fujisaki if she’d wanted to.

“Why did you want to sit with me?” Maizono asked the ceiling. It felt like a good time to be honest, but she was still to exhausted to conjure up anything but the barest bones of the truth. “You shouldn’t trust people like me, not if you can help it. I tried to kill Kuwata-kun, you know. I was going to stab him with a kitchen knife and pin it on the only person I had any connection to.” Her stomach gave a dull throb at the reminder and she rubbed at it with the heel of her hand.

Fujisaki shifted again and she still couldn’t see it. “I know that.” She acknowledged, voice oddly calm. Maizono blinked. “You were really scared though. Even though you were scared you still managed to get that far, even though it wasn’t a good thing to do, you were strong enough to go through with it. I’m _always_ scared, Maizono-san, and that’s why I wanted to be stronger. I need to learn to be brave, to be myself instead of letting every little thing other people say control me. It’s the people who don’t get scared who are stronger. You look weak and you get scared just like I do, but you still act as if you’re strong. I don’t understand it.” Maizono wanted to hold out her hands, pause, rewind—maybe be a little offended, that was _probably_ a little offensive—but Fujisaki just kept on. “It makes me feel safe around you though, like you wouldn’t hurt me because you understand.”

 _Safe_. Her eyes drilled into the emptiness about her as the repeated in her mind, like the scratch of a record.

Fujisaki thought she was _safe_ ; someone who would protect her and keep her comforted and happy and, how the hell was Maizono supposed to do that for _her_ if she couldn’t even do it for _herself?_ Nonsense. Maizono was like a child who needed her hand to be held with each step, she wasn’t a person to rely on.

Her stomach felt uneven, and at it felt like anger bubbling up in there. How could these people be so wrong? First Naegi, then Fujisaki. At least Kirigiri, for how much she infuriated her, didn’t let Maizono forget what she had done. There was no denying who Maizono had become around her.

Maizono didn’t feel strong, wasn’t anything _near_ strong. She was as weak as Fujisaki claimed she looked, whatever it probably meant. Scared felt more appropriate. Maizono let herself be controlled by her fears, manipulated like a silly puppet, and in the end paid for her own emotions. That hadn’t changed. Maizono still felt terrified, like she was being force fed her own worst nightmare over again. Fujisaki was _wrong_ about her, she was weak and scared, and there was no way she could help her.

She could see it though, just through her peripheral — through the weak light of the screen and with how it reflected off of her big brown eyes, Fujisaki was begging her to say _something_. After she’d just poured out her heart to Maizono she needed that affirmation, that shared confidence.  

Maizono couldn’t deny someone so desperate for anything, not when they thought _she_ was _safe_.

“I...suppose...” Maizono swallowed, because this was a terrible idea and what if she _ruined_ it? Her mind was too foggy to properly think anything through at the moment. “If it makes you feel better, you could, um, maybe stick by me when he’s around? I mean, no one’s going to make you, uh, talk with Oowada-kun and stuff. Just stand by me and I...I, I’ll try my best to help you.”

Was that a good offer? Maybe she should turn to at least look at her, Fujisaki might be offended with how long she’d been staring at the ceiling. Her back popped as she rolled on her side to look at the other.

Maizono was met with a tearful smile and, for a moment, she worried that Fujisaki had fallen to tears because of the thoughtless mention of her killer. Then Fujisaki scooted closer and took Maizono’s hand with so much _hesitation_ —her eyes on Maizono for a reaction the entire time, ready to let go if she gave even the smallest inclination that it was too far, _too soon_ —and smiled a smile that Maizono could see even in the dark.

“Thank you, thank you so much Maizono-san. _Thank you_.” She whispered, fervent and hopeful. Fujisaki squeezed her palm with fingers that shook, but they were weak tremors, like holding the hand of a dying elder. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Despite the weight on her heart, the weight of a blind and broken girl who had thrown herself into a new incarnation of Hell because of some damned curiosity and who had betrayed those close to her and who had gotten herself killed because she was scared, Maizono looked at those huge brown eyes and managed to smile back.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that we've finished with out first motive, we're moving onto crunch time. If you've got any guesses as to our first death, then make sure to put it in the comments.  
> Anyway, here's the link to our new tumblr side blog for this story.  
> http://whodoyoudistrust.tumblr.com/  
> -Karisa
> 
> ((POSTED ON : 11/28/2015))


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